Saturday, 27 August 2016

The Scarborough Cricket Festival - part one

Posted by Tony Hutton

Unknown to many cricket lovers the Scarborough cricket festival actually started on Sunday 21st August, two days before the important county championship match between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire started. The first game had little publicity and gave the handful of spectators an opportunity to enjoy the atmosphere and the good weather long before the huge crowds appeared.

The game was an inter league match between the Yorkshire Premier League North and the North Yorkshire and South Durham League with two very strong looking sides taking the field. Three from each side involved in the game yesterday at Weetwood, together with three from York, appeared for the home side. Whereas the visitors fielded quite a gathering of overseas professionals as well as a name still remembered as a Yorkshire hopeful from some years ago now in Chris Allinson.

The visitors batted and started strongly piling up the runs in good batting conditions.
The innings fell away a little towards the end but a healthy total of 262-9 was achieved in fifty overs. The two top scorers were Arshad from Seaton Carew who made 77 and Sajjad from Normanby Hall with 79. Best bowling came from George Ross of Harrogate with 4-46.

George Ross leads off the Yorkshire league north side

One of the late replacements for the Yorkshire League side was Harry Brook, who of course was out for a duck in the first over yesterday. He replaced the Castleford all rounder David Wainwright, who we later learned had joined Hampshire to play against Somerset later in the week. Well this time John Abrahams should have been here as young Harry, still only seventeen, dominated proceedings with a master class of batting. Apart from one or two rather wild swings, he played some beautiful shots keeping the ball on the ground, finding the gaps in the field and collecting a succession of boundaries. Brook finished the game on 130 not out and was well supported by Duncan Snell, Johnny Tattersall, Liam McKendry and George Ross who all made decent scores.
Harry Brook brings up his century in front of the modest popular side crowd
Harry Brook acknowledges the applause at the end of a great innings

The NYSD league bowling was not really of the best but still a very interesting game greatly enjoyed by all who were there and a shame really that it did not get much publicity and no reports or scorecard appeared anywhere to my knowledge. Still a nice appetizer for the more important things to come on Tuesday and nice to enjoy the facilities and the memorabilia in the pavilion before it is packed to capacity.

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