East too good for west

posted by John Winn

Woodhouse Grange had a comfortable victory over Streethouse in their Village Cup quarter final yesterday. When I arrived shortly before the scheduled 13:00 start a goodly crowd had assembled on a largely sunny if breezy afternoon. The West Yorkshire team followers had set up camp on either side of the scoreboard while home support stretched round from the pavilion to the nets in the furthest corner of the ground. The tournament is sponsored by Yorkshire Tea and from their distinctive van free cups of tea together with sample boxes of tea bags were dispensed throughout the afternoon. This rather made me wish they had swapped sponsorship with Kingfisher Beer who this year are supporting the National Club KO competition.

Whilst waiting for the start and having my first complimentary cup of tea I received a text from a friend who had been at The Riverside to see Durham's remarkable victory over Middlesex by 15 runs with the bowlers digging them out of the mire they had got into on Friday. Forty wickets down in under seven sessions and a highest total of 200 and yet I suspect no questions will be asked about the pitch.

Grange won the toss and batted and Streethouse looked very much on their toes when they took the field with most of the players supporting names and numbers on their backs to which was added the third 'n',  noise, as soon as the first ball was bowled. Batting was not easy and the openers had some lucky escapes but were not parted until 94 had been added and Hattee was comprehensively yorked by Patel. With thirty of the forty overs gone the score stood at 132 for 3 but the introduction of spin against two left handers saw the game taken away fron Streethouse as five of the bowlers conceded a total of 112 runs with the chief destructor being Chris Bilton who reached his hundred off the last ball, it having taken 52 balls and the second  fifty having come off just 19 balls. How much I wonder did the Streethouse skipper regret not having kept some overs in reserve for use by Wild who had bowled splendidly at the beginning of the innings? Bilton's thrilling knock came on top of  the 98 he scored on Saturday before being run out!

The feeling amongst home supporters seated near me was that this was far too many runs for Streethouse to get and the loss of early wickets which saw them at 54 for 5 in the 16th over effectively put the game beyond their reach. Streethouse spirits were lifted slightly by a sixth wicket stand of 66 but the running between the wickets rarely pressurised the Woodhouse fielders into mistakes and the rate remained well below the 8 an over which had become needed by the time this pair were parted. Top score for the visitors came from skipper Richard Vigars with 56 but when they were all out in the 39th over they were still 70 runs short.

So Woodhouse proceed without too much worry into the semi finals where I understand they will play either Water Orton or Cropston* at home but as this knowledge was imparted to me by a gentleman who had spent much of the game in the bar I shall seek confirmation elsewhere. In fairness it does make sense from a travelling point of view that their opponents should be from the midland rather than from the southern groups. In those groups there was an outstanding win for Wiltshire club Goatcare who defeated Wraysbury by 130 runs but in the other southern group Reed CC beat Plumpton by only one run..

In the National KO cup htere were wins yesterday for York, Bamford Fieldhouse and Havant. Wanstead and Snaresbrook play Bridgewater next week to decide the fourth semi finalist.

*Although the is no result on the official play cricket website  the Cropston website has a match report of their victory over Water Orton.