Boxing Day Cricket 2017

 Posted by Tony Hutton

The 68th successive charity Boxing Day cricket match took place today at North Leeds Cricket Club .
After early morning rain, the weather relented and after a cloudy start the later stages of the game were played in bright sunshine.

Two late withdrawals of long time regulars Steve Lawrence and Harwood Williams from the Northern Cricket Society side did not detract from the visitors performance and three of their batsmen reached the thirty run mark, which meant they had to retire. Star of the show was South African James van de Merwe who reached 29 with a six and promptly hit another one before retiring on 35.

The game was played on a matting wicket rather than the usual artificial strip alongside and this seemed to encourage the batsmen who put on the highest score for some time, certainly by the NCS side who have been well beaten in recent years. As the weather improved so did the size of the crowd which by the end of the first innings had grown considerably. The Northern innings finished on 175-5 with three retirements in their 25 overs, all helped by plenty of vocal encouragement from skipper Andrew Stoddart.

The home side's reply was played in bright sunshine, although with a chill breeze which sent most of the crowd either into the welcoming warmth of the bar, where hot and cold drinks were being sold in good numbers as well as a healthy trade in mince pies and pork pies, or onto the pavilion balcony.

The crowd included former players with long memories of playing in the snow possibly around forty years or even longer ago, such as Harold Todd and Reg Parker. This is always a wonderful social occasion for spectators to meet up at Christmas and remember such tales of long ago. Sadly for once the North Leeds reply did not live up to expectations and wickets fell at regular intervals to leave them all out for 85 and the Northern Cricket Society victors by a large margin of 90 runs.