WALSHAW WOES IN THE SUMMER SUN

As the summer sun arrived the 1sts faced very local rivals Walshaw in the first "Tottington derby" of the season - and ultimately left disappointed after some costly dropped catches.

With the Doc once again timing his unavailability to perfection (snow last week - 25 degrees this week), it was left to veteran Marcus McCheyne to open the bowling with the returning Si Marsh. Both turned in useful opening spells, though Walshaw appeared hell bent on breaking records with the lick they went off at. Every ball seemed to bring either a wicket chance or a boundary!

When your roving reporter turned up, Walshaw had raced to 70-4 off about 13 overs; Marshy had two wickets and Marcus had added to his scalp with a cracking run out. Unfortunately a costly drop then let Walshaw off the hook, and Stephenson and Davis capitalised, adding 134 in just 22 overs before Davis was caught behind off Ste Brooks, having made 79 from just 61 balls.

The innings faded a little after that, with stand-in skipper Rick Carr and Brooky picking up 5 wickets at the close to keep Walshaw to a challenging 234 all out.

Propsects of a run chase were good at the outset, with a very fast outfield rewarding anything that got through the inner circle. Unfortunately very little did early on, with none of the Totts batters able to capitalise on getting started.

Rick (29) and Batty (28 not out) both got going but it was left to that man McCheyne to bash 35 not out from just 16 balls to give the scoreline some respectability at 183-8 from the 47 available overs.

The full scorecard and details are on the cricHQ website - https://www.crichq.com/#matches/378593/1st_innings

Photos from the game are also available in our GMCL 2016 image gallery! Many thanks to Paul Thomas as usual!