Blackburn Cricket Club

BCC THIRD XI REPORT

Semi Final : 12, 13, 14 March 2011

HEATHERDALE  144

Berry 2/35 (16 overs), A.Roberts 5/34 (26 overs), Moore 1/13 (11 overs), Haughey 2/24 (8 overs)

defeated

BLACKBURN 106

Willis 44 

Heatherdale won the toss and batted. It was a tight game on a humid day right from the start with Smith and Berry bowling tightly and Heatherdale putting on 38 for the opening partnership, before Willis took a blinder at slip. Alex Roberts and Moore continued to apply the pressure and were rewarded with 2 and 1 wickets respectively as Heatherdale slumped to 4/55. Two 20 odd partnerships and they were 6/98.

Their opener was still in and started to up the tempo and took the score to 136 before Roberts broke through again. Haughey took 2 wickets and Roberts the last as their last 4 wickets fell for only 8 runs. Their opener batted through for 82 not out, their second top scorer made 12.  All bowlers bowled well, the marathon effort of Roberts the highlight. The catching was excellent with Callanan snaffling 3 at slip and Willis and Jenkin 2 each. Callanan and Moore saw us safely to stumps at 0/5 from 4 overs.

We lost 2 early wickets on Sunday to be 2/19 before Haughey and Willis put together an excellent 51 partnership. Willis in particular looked in great touch. Their two opening bowlers had pretty much bowled through and were showing signs of tiring but rain just before the tea break ended up washing out play for the day. Unfortunately Haughey was bowled 8 balls before the rain.

Day 3 started with everyone refreshed and the battle continued. Two early wickets fell before Warren Roberts and Hayes took us to within 40 of victory with 5 wickets and 23 overs remaining. Their two opening bowlers were still bowling well. Then Hayes was very unluckily given out LBW and soon after Jenkins the same way. We lost our last 5 wickets for only one run, the last to another LBW – our fifth for the innings.

Although most players in our side contributed something to the game, we were beaten by 3 great individual performances (by their opening batsman and two opening bowlers, who bowled 62 of our 67 overs between them). It was a very disappointing end to a season where we had finished top of the ladder.