Arthington's traditional end of season festival.

 Posted by Tony Hutton

For the last thirty years or so Arthington cricket club, tucked away in lower Wharfedale north of Leeds, has provided cricket lovers with an annual festival which prolongs the end of the season until the middle of October. The opposition is provided by a variety of mainly Sunday friendly clubs, sadly becoming depleted in numbers over the years. Regular visitors such as Doghouse from Teesside and The Jesters, near neighbours in West Yorkshire, no longer exist and are sadly missed.  Arthington themselves were a friendly club not that very far back in their long history, but now are making regular progress up the divisions in the widely spread Nidderdale League. As John Winn has already mentioned both first and second elevens were promoted this season.

Arthington's rural setting.

The festival actually started early this year with a game against Woody's All Stars on Sunday 5th September. This was a side got together by Mel Wood, brother of Barry Wood, once of both Yorkshire and Lancashire. Sadly they did not live up to their name being bowled out for 103 in reply to Arthington's 248-8. Prolific first team skipper Naveed Andrabi making 100 not out. A week later another century maker, Kasir Hisham Sudais, scored 110 not out for visitors Romany who won convincingly.

The first game we actually saw was on Sunday 19th September against Halifax Nomads who made a daunting 218 all out in their allotted forty overs. It would have been more after an opening stand of 120 but the middle and lower orders collapsed against the deadly duo of Sam O'Sullivan and Dougie Jones. As is often the case players swap teams with regularity during the festival with Mel Wood turning out again this time for the Nomads. Meanwhile last  week's century maker for Romany had been recruited by the home side.

Where sheep may safely graze. A corner of the ground at Arthington.

He managed to make 36, Geoff Barker a festival regular for many years, made 37 and set the stage for Sam O'Sullivan, who plays for Pool in Wharfedale, to make 86 as Arthington raced to victory with 40 not out from Adnan Taj and a rapid 13 not out, with three fours, for the ubiquitous Andy Stoddart with just three overs remaining.

A quick single for Geoff Barker.

We managed to get to both games this weekend with fine weather all the way. Saturday's game with Burton Salmon brought an unexpected finish. The home side made a reasonable score of  165-8 with some consistent batting, helped by 43 from South African James Van Der Merve, before he was unfortunately run out. What happened next was a total surprise as a clatter of wickets started the visitors' innings.

An 85 year old opens the bowling.

There was rather a wide margin between the ages of the two opening bowlers, one of whom the incredible Dennis Nash, is now 85 years old and still going strong. It was his much younger partner Dan Fitzpatrick who clean bowled the first two batsmen, making it 7-2, before Dennis struck having the surviving opener caught behind to make it 11-3. We had been told that the visitors only had two batsman and that the rest would not last long, but the two batsmen (or batters I should say!) were proving hard to find.

Veteran Dennis Nash ready for a rest.

Number five Stuart Camm certainly looked the part until he drove Dennis in the air straight to the long on fielder who did not have to move, making it 30-4. It was not long before Abid Hussain followed given the slow finger of death from umpire Keith Dibb following Fitzpatrick's vociferous lbw appeal. This made it 35-5 and it looked only a matter of time before an early finish.

Dennis Nash describes his last wicket.

However help was at hand and at last it seemed that one of the proper batsman in the shape of Paul Heseltine, appeared at number seven. Two other batsman stayed briefly before Fitzpatrick got his fourth and fifth wickets, with Burton Salmon seemingly on their way home at 55-7. Next man in Zakee Anwar, helped Heseltine put on 50 runs, making 18, with the help of four fours before he was caught off the South African spinner to make it 106-8.

So sixty runs still required as Naveed Anwar came to the wicket. Rumours that he was one of two 'ringers' from the Bradford League are still unconfirmed, but he certainly showed plenty of ability, scoring four fours and four sixes, as together with Heseltine they knocked off the sixty runs without much trouble. Both batsman finished on exactly 50 not out to complete a rare turn around from the parlous state of  55-7.

End of season not far away.

Sunday's game against the Druids, an old established club from the Harrogate area , also produced plenty of runs although the visitors who batted first did not make the most of a good start which saw them slump from 166-4 to 180 all out. The two top scorers were young twin brothers James and Mark Wood, who made 45 and 56 respectively. Another veteran bowler, although nowhere near Mr Nash's age yet, Nick Briggs amazed himself with four wickets in his final over, without managing a hat trick.

Another wicket for Nick Briggs.

Time for tea at Arthington.

Arthington made quick work of gaining a relatively easy victory in only 22.3 overs with runs for Nathan Smith (38), Rahul Khode (65) and James Lord (50 not out). The two twins were not as successful with their bowling as they were with the bat, both having identical figures of 0-49.

Andy Stoddart, another festival regular, bowls with his cap on.

Weather permitting there are four more games to look forward two on the next two Saturdays and Sundays finishing on Sunday 10th October. All games likely to start at twelve noon.