Runs galore at Weetwood

Posted by Tony Hutton

A splendid day for cricket watchers in North Leeds today. The winds of the previous few days had largely disappeared and hot sunshine was in evidence for most of the day. The first two hours spent on the north east top deck at Headingley with our Huddersfield contingent. Hampshire defended stoutly thanks to Will Smith and the new young wicketkeeper McManus, but with Rashid in particular bowling well it was only a matter of time, after lunch in fact, for Yorkshire to claim a good win.

By this time I had already progressed up the road to Weetwood, where Leeds/Bradford looked to have the first innings points in the bag, until their two star men were out, Davies the captain for a fine 66 which included 12 fours and the prolific Billy Root with yet another century. This time he made a rather more restrained 114 before falling to an lbw decision which did not please him. However the innings then subsided somewhat and as Brian has described the last pair clinched the first innings points in fine style.

Leeds/Bradford men in command

After tea Loughborough had 29 overs to bat which meant another late finish, but they made good use of them with some quick scoring to take additional bonus points for their final second innings total of 177-2. The two not out batsmen Karim and Kumar putting on a partnership of 113. So the game ended with 18 points to Leeds/Bradford, who presumably remain top of the table, and 10 points to Loughborough.

Again as Brian has described, while all this was going on there was a remarkable game taking place on the second ground at Weetwood between Leeds University Women and Loughborough Women. This is a smallish ground, but the game was a total mis-match with the powerful Loughborough side much too strong for a very poor Leeds team, whose fielding and bowling was woeful.

Loughborough ladies pile up the runs

Fours were coming off almost every ball and the score progressed from 337-3 after 29 overs to 474-3 off 41, and after we had told the Loughborough girls they should try for 555 to pass Holmes and Sutcliffe's record partnership for Yorkshire, they reached it with ease and finished 565-4. The three girls who reached centuries were Katie Midwood, from Leicestershire with 116, Paige Scholfield from South Africa who reached 101 in only 38 balls, and best of all Marie Kelly from Warwickshire who made 150 from 76 balls and finished 175 not out at the end. An amazing achievement whatever the strength of the opposition. The three century makers proudly posed for Brian's picture.

Kelly (175 not out) and North (18 not out)

Predictably the shell-shocked Leeds players, after getting to 57-1, collapsed to 100 all out and Loughborough even produced a bowler called Boycott who took six wickets. Three other wickets fell to century maker Kelly - not a bad day for her. We all thought this must be a record score of some sort for a 50 over match. However on searching cricinfo I found that the highest ever 50 over score was 629-5 by the University of Warwick 2nd XI (!) against Newman College in 2007.

There appears to be no similar list for women's cricket and I am fairly confident that this could be a world record for the women's game and hopefully someone may come up with the information.