The 69th Annual Boxing Day cricket match took place, as ever, at North Leeds cricket club, Roundhay yesterday. The home side avenged their defeat at the hands of the Northern Cricket Society twelve months ago with a last ball victory in a high scoring and competitive encounter.
Before play started the players of both sides lined up in the middle for a minute's silence in memory of Jenny Bowes, a member of the well known Bardsey cricketing family. Jenny scored for Bardsey cricket club, for whom her husband Tim and sons Andy and Steve have all played, for many years.
Tim was in attendance and Andy guested for the North Leeds side.
The weather was fine and dry, and not too cold, and the game was played on a matting wicket with a shortish boundary on one side, encouraging the hitting of sixes of which there were quite a few.
The Northern Cricket Society batted first but lost veteran Steve Lawrence early on without troubling the scorers. Steve is of course son of the famous Johnny Lawrence, county cricketer with Somerset, who supported this game for many years.
The early wicket did not seem to trouble the other batsmen who laid about them in good style and the runs came quickly. The game was played as proper cricket, with no messing about, and the only difference in the rules was that batsmen had to retire at the end of the over in which they reached 29.
They were then allowed to bat again if needed, which helped out both teams towards the end of their innings.
After the first two retirements, wickets fell at regular intervals but the runs kept coming and eventually the Northern Cricket Society were all out for 172 in the final 25th over of the innings.
During the morning the crowd built up nicely and the bar was doing an excellent trade, with club stalwart Steve Wales helping out serving coffee and teas as well as hot dogs and mince pies which all went down a treat.
Good to renew friendships with a lot of individuals that you normally only meet during the cricket season and we lost count of all the people we met. Reg Parker and Harold Todd were both notable players in this fixture many years ago, with Reg in his early nineties now possibly the oldest present.
One spectator who travels every year from Lancaster, Ian Cockerill, had probably travelled the furthest and was there early in pole position so that he could watch from his parked car.
The North Leeds innings also got off to a good start, with the Northern Cricket Society's bowlers not really matching the performance of their batsmen. However from a position where a home victory looked to be coming very quickly, wickets began to fall and eight runs an over were required from the last three to be bowled. Skipper Andy Stoddart made a breakthrough with a wicket with the last ball of the penultimate over. With eight wickets down North Leeds were able to recall top order batsmen who had retired earlier and they were able to level the scores with one ball remaining. A drive through mid on brought an easy two runs and North Leeds were the victors by two wickets.
This was a good start for new North Leeds captain Dom Cowley who proudly took the trophy whereas his opposite number, who had predicted a crushing victory for the Northern Cricket Society, left the field looking non too pleased. No doubt he would calm down as the after match festivities continued and certainly the spectators, especially those clutching raffle prizes, will have felt it was yet another most enjoyable occasion.
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