Cricket at the seaside

 Posted by Tony Hutton

The current round of county championship matches has seen some extraordinary high scores, most of which seem to have taken place at the seaside. In the north, the games at Scarborough and Southport have seen scores in excess of 500, including over 300 for Keaton Jennings of Lancashire. Whereas on the South Coast at Hove Sussex and Leicestershire have produced absurdly high scores, including a record partnership for Leicestershire, between two South Africans who both scored double centuries.

Cricket at Southport

A summer's day at Scarborough.

However with the National Counties in three day action, my own choice was between Barrow on the West Coast, for Cumbria against Cambridgeshire, or Cleethorpes on the East Coast for Lincolnshire against Staffordshire. Heading east, with less weekend traffic, was the decision with all day sunshine tempered somewhat by cooling sea breezes. One reason for this choice could have been very distant memories of my first ever Minor Counties match. A little research showed that in August 1951 I saw Staffordshire take on Yorkshire seconds at Walsall cricket club's Gorway ground. This was in the days of two day games and memorably Yorkshire seconds won on the last ball of the game.

Cricket at Cleethorpes in the past.

Back to the present and Staffordshire, having won the toss, decided to bat. Alex Mellor, who had a brief career with Warwickshire as a batsman/wicketkeeper led the way with the bat with good support from Matthew Morris, putting on seventy three for the second wicket. Lincolnshire's opening bowling was in the hands of Mark Footitt, a left arm seamer who has been round the block in county cricket with Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Surrey, and Curtis Free, one time Yorkshire Academy player.

However the hero of the day, as the crowd built up during the afternoon, turned out to be Michael Hill, a left hander who had previously been with the Derbyshire Academy and Herefordshire. He scored a hard earned century, which held the Staffordshire innings together and enabled them to declare shortly before the ninety overs limit on 326-8. With the help of some late wickets Footitt returned the best bowling figures with 4-64.

After we had moved on to pastures new on day two, Lincolnshire's first innings was a solid affair, with Jordan Cook, from Appleby Frodingham, top scoring with 71 not out in a a total of 282 all out.  Staffordshire then built on their lead with yet another century from Hill and more useful contributions from Morris and skipper Peter Wilshaw. However Wilshaw's declaration on 306-5 left Lincolnshire the stiff target of 351 to chase. In retrospect he might have declared earlier as Lincolnshire had little trouble in batting out time for a draw on 196-5. A fifty partnership between Nic Keast and Drew Sylvester seeing the home side to safety.

As it turned out the game on the other side of the country at Barrow cricket club produced a similar challenge and very nearly a dramatic victory for the home side Cumbria, despite being bowled out for 98 in their first innings.. Cambridgeshire had set them 359 to win and thanks to Matthew Sempill with a magnificent 129, they very nearly got there, losing by just 34 runs. The run chase featured a stand of 98 for the eighth wicket between Sempill and wicketkeeper Drew Postlethwaite (57) and a ninth wicket partnership with Josh Stirling of 71. Sadly last man Matthew Siddall, who had earlier taken ten wickets in the match, including 5-35 in the first innings, perished first ball and the game was over.