Harrogate beat the weather & counter attractions.

 Posted by Tony Hutton

Not really a great week for cricket watching. We had planned three days in County Durham to watch Durham under 18s play Yorkshire under 18s at the attractive Hartlepool ground. However we were saved from a wasted journey by a message from our Hartlepool correspondent Mike Taylerson, who informed John Winn that the game had been cancelled due to Covid 19 problems in the Yorkshire camp. The same problem was presumably responsible for another cancellation today of the game between Driffield and the Yorkshire Academy.

Today's scene at Harrogate was very similar to this one.

However after a week without cricket, we made our way to Harrogate cricket club wondering whether the poor weather forecast might scupper our plans again. Fortunately a prompt start at twelve noon and the game was well under way before the persistent drizzle got a little heavier and interrupted proceedings with a long delay of about an hour and a half. Before that Jack Timby, the Lincolnshire county player, looked in good form for visitors Stamford Bridge and made a fairly rapid 50.

One apparent newcomer in the ranks for the visitors made only a short visit to the wicket being bowled by Ishan Abeysekara for a duck. This turned out to be Dominic Blampied, who is in fact an international cricketer for the island of Jersey. After the rain delay the overs were reduced to 44 per side, which seemed to threaten a late finish. Timby, one of four Leeds Bradford University players in the ranks,  was surprised to be bowled by a Harrogate newcomer, slow left armer Ben Moss, who dismissed him for a valuable 72, with the total on 130-5. Moss has played for Calmore Sports in Hampshire, prominent in the Village Knock out this season, but reached Harrogate via Wath & Melmerby of the Nidderdale League.

The Stamford Bridge tailenders were well supported by another of the Leeds/Bradford University contingent, James Keast, who completed his fifty just before the inning ended on 210-8. With only one pace bowler in Ashley Griffin, Harrogate very much relied on their four spinners, and their Sri Lankan, Abeysekara, was again the leading wicket taker with 3-49.

During the long rain delay it was heartening to see the Harrogate third eleven, playing on the neighbouring Nursery Ground, continue playing throughout the drizzle in their Nidderdale League division one game against Kirk Deighton. Full marks to them. Other entertainment was provided by a children's birthday party going full swing in the lower floor of the pavilion. On the upper floor the Test Match was available on the big screen and no doubt the British Lions a little later. Another sign of the club's enterprise in providing a venue for all sorts of social events and obviously a good money spinner. A few other spectators might have been enticed away by the advent of the football season as not too far away Harrogate Town were registering a 3-2 win over Rochdale.

Henry Thompson in his Leeds/Bradford University days.

The foundations of Harrogate's reply were laid by the tall Lancastrian Henry Thompson, yet another Leeds/Bradford University graduate, of a somewhat earlier vintage, and Harry Allison of the Yorkshire Academy who put together a hundred partnership for the second wicket. Allinson went caught behind by Timby off the bowling of the man from Jersey for 49, but Thompson was yet again the mainstay with an innings of 83. A couple of late wickets turned it into a cliff hanger, but Ben Moss and Ashley Griffin saw Harrogate home to a five wicket victory with just two balls remaining at around seven o'clock in the evening.