Eventful Bank Holiday weekend for Yorkshire League North.

 Posted by Tony Hutton

While we were travelling home from Riverside early on Saturday evening an exciting game was going on in the Yorkshire Premier League North at Acomb in the city of York. The home side were league leaders going into the weekend and restricted their visitors, the Yorkshire Academy, to a total of 199-8. Despite in-form Academy skipper Will Luxton falling for a duck, Harry Allinson held the innings together with 66 not out. The young Academy bowlers were not fazed and both the pace bowlers James Mukherjee and Ben Cliff took an early wicket to leave Acomb struggling on 16-2.

After a 92 partnership between Wade and D'Silva, taking the score to 92-2, enter left arm spinner Harry Sullivan. He managed to take the next seven wickets, despite taking some punishment, to leave Acomb needing eleven more runs to win when the last man James Tindall came to the wicket. In partnership with wicketkeeper Joe Schofield they managed to level the scores before Sullivan started the last over of the game.

Off the second ball of this last over number eleven Tindall went for glory with a big hit, but was brilliantly caught one handed by Ed Booth on the distant boundary to end the match as a tie. Sullivan finishing with the wonderful figures of 12.2-1-52-8. So another cliff hanger to go with the exciting finish we saw a few weeks ago when Acomb narrowly beat Stamford Bridge.

York batting in perfect conditions at Weetwood.

Another full programme of matches followed on Monday and this time we were in place at Weetwood to see the Academy take on York, perhaps not quite as strong as they were a few seasons ago but still very much a force to be reckoned with. On another perfect summer's day York batted and the conditions suggested a big score was in prospect. However at 35-2 when Harry Sullivan bowled former Academy colleague Finlay Bean for a duck, York looked in trouble.

 

Harry Sullivan bowling at Weetwood.

Two experienced hands in Duncan Snell and Ryan McKendry steadied the ship before Snell was bowled by Ed Booth for a well made 60. McKendry than watched from the non-striker's end when Booth removed Guy Darwin, caught behind, then Charlie Elliot first ball with a perfect yorker. So York were then 139-5 and soon afterwards a real tragedy struck the visitors when McKendry took a hard fall in completing a run and was obviously in pain with a serious injury. It later transpired that McKendry had pulled a hamstring and will be out for the rest of the season.

Spectators basking in the sunshine.

York were still well able to fight back and a partnership between wicketkeeper Tom Brooks and Oliver Needham of sixty runs, which included seventeen from the last over of the innings, took them somewhere near par score of 217-6 in fifty overs. The Academy reply started with a good partnership of 45 between Yash Vagadia and Matthew Weston . Although Weston made only 25 he showed a good technique and played some very nice shots, certainly a good prospect for the future.

The pavilion at Weetwood.

With both openers gone it was time for skipper Will Luxton and the somewhat more experienced James Wharton to come to the party. They certainly did that with a partnership of 135 which had the home side confidently coasting towards an easy victory. York of course missed the bowling of their absent skipper, which had Simon Lambert unusually bowling a full stint of thirteen overs.

Spinner Tom Forsdike (who finished with 4-54) managed to dismiss Wharton for 59 and soon afterwards Luxton played his first false stroke and was lbw to Lambert for 75. So two new batsmen at the crease and twenty two runs still needed for victory. York suddenly came to life again in the field and another wicket went down when Saturday's hero Allinson went for four. However no nerves from Daniel Ford and James Mukherjee who calmly saw the Academy home to a five wicket victory with a boundary each to end the game.

Ford and Mukherjee lead the players in at the end of the game.

Fist bumps all round at the end, with coaches Richard Damms (Academy) and Jim Love (York), together with Alex Kaye, the Academy wicketkeeper and the injured York skipper Ryan McKendry.

News soon came in to show that Castleford had beaten Acomb and now replace them at the top of the league table. The good news from Weetwood being that this very young Academy side are growing in confidence and now show signs of being able to stand up against the best teams in the league.