Sunday 5th June
As Brian has already mentioned I followed in his footsteps through rural England to watch Minor Counties cricket which has been a passion of mine for over twenty years now. It has not lost it's original appeal with three day matches played on some of the most beautiful grounds in England, usually in the right spirit and with the ability to produce results which sometimes surprise us.
Along with Brian the first of our five days tour was at Tattenhall in Cheshire. It is an attractive village and the first time I had seen cricket on the splendid ground which has all the facilities required for spectators including a proper scorecard, a team picture of the home side and even free ice creams from the sponsors.
Cheshire county cricket club
Brian has already described how Ash Davis, the quick bowler from Chester Boughton Hall, devastated the early Wiltshire batting and it took the West Indian Morrison from
the Corsham club and skipper Afridi from Pakistan to bring respectability to the total of 166. Even the in form wicketkeeper, the Germanic sounding Patrick Greishaber, who made a century the previous day for his club side Downend, could only contribute two. He actually comes from Bath rather than Berlin.
Sunshine at Tattenhall
Unusually, left arm spinner Dan Woods normally the leading wicket taker for both
Cheshire and his club side York only bowled two overs and did not take a wicket.
Rick Moore, like Woods a product of the Leeds/Bradford University side, started
well when Cheshire batted and the top three took the score to 128-2 before the
middle order collapsed on the following day to leave it to the tailenders to take the
score to 303 all out. Wiltshire did marginally better in their second innings on
day two but Cheshire were able to knock off the 98 to win in two days.
However it was a splendid first day in the hot sun and good to chat to Peter Davies who seems to be enjoying his travels even to the extent of following the Huddersfield Giants to such diverse venues as Perpigan and Widnes.
By day two we had passed on just down the road into Shropshire who were taking on
Dorset at Whitchurch, which is a pleasant market town with a large ground just off
the by-pass, with plenty of parking available as there was at Tattenhall.
Whitchurch cricket club
Shropshire had bowled out the visitors Dorset for 185 on day one thanks mainly to a very tall opening bowler called Wyatt who was previously with Leicestershire.
He had taken 6-69 and former Yorkshire and Derbyshire player David Wainwright,
who we had seen in action for Castleford on Saturday, had taken 3-46. Wainwright
was carrying on his good work with the bat when we arrived on day 2 and was putting
together a good partnership with former Worcester player Ralph, who went on to top score with 87. Sadly Ralph called Wainwright for an impossible second run and he was
run out by yards for just 23.
By this time Shropshire had a good lead on 254-6 and the tailenders cobbled together another 40 or so runs so that the home side were eventually dismissed for 296, a lead
of 111. One of the interesting Dorset bowlers was a well built young man called Rob Pack who I remembered seeing playing for Dorset under 17s in the Isle of Wight last season. He must only be 18 now but bowled his slow left armers with some maturity
and seemed unlucky to finish with figures of 1-62. I also remember him scoring runs
for the under 17s.
Rob Pack bowling for Dorset at Whitchurch
After a good opening stand of 63 the afternoon session became a procession as the spin of Wainwright and McIver brought about a collapse and shortly before tea Dorset were all out for just 119 leaving Shropshire just nine to win which they achieved by tea time on day 2. Wainwright took 5-30 plus a catch and a run out and McIver 4-34. We discovered that Cheshire were also on the verge of a two day victory so plans for Tuesday were to involve yet another Minor Counties game where Brian had gone today. This was Herefordshire against Berkshire at Colwall near Malvern, but more of that in the next blog.
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