Each week Jim Wilkinson, our 1st XI scorer will report on the weekends events giving an great insight into the 1st XI game.
Crompton might not be the end of the world, but you can see it from there, as a mate of mine says.
Who among Lancashire League folk hasn’t experienced that fear that you’re about to be cast into a vortex of eternal exile when the Sat Nav tells you: "At the roundabout, take the first exit towards Huddersfield”?
Todmorden once a season is fine but beyond there lies only misery. Ask the lad from Nelson who signed for a Bradford League club and caused a watching Ray Illingworth to ask who the fella playing and missing and generally scratching about was.
“Someone from the Lancs League,” replied the former England captain’s companion.
“That bloody says it all,” Ray harrumphed.
They’re best left to their own musings, that lot, so it’s always a relief when a bewildering series of twists and turns establishes that you’re back in the old County Palatine via Newhey, Shaw, Milnrow, Crompton and wherever else you have to traverse to get to Glebe Street.
I first came here, amazingly, to watch Accrington play an Inter-League KO game in 1999.
I was Sports Ed on the Accy Ob and had some flawed theory about going to the furthest flung game any Hyndburn team was playing in to rack up 40p a mile expenses (paid in cash in a brown envelope on Thursday mornings).
Accrington’s line up that day - Steve Birtwistle, Stefan Heins, M D Bailey [pro], captain Mas Ahmed, Matt Wilson, Wayne Roberts, Toc Hussain, Z Afzal, Damian Clarke, K Shazad
Crompton won a rain-affected low-scoring quarter-final by 13 runs,
It was a dull day and my first impressions weren’t great but I’ve been back watching Church on nicer days and must admit it is a more attractive venue than I once gave it credit for.
On one occasion England were playing Panama in the World Cup and won 6-0 as the locals went beserk in a jam-packed clubhouse Later that afternoon I got a call from my daughter saying she was at Old Trafford and England were eight down on the verge of defeat in an ODI v the Aussies,
I went to collect her intending popping back on Crompton. Butler shepherded the tail to victory with his slowest ever 100 as I listened on the radio creeping around Stretford for 90 minutes to avoid parking charges, advising Millie to stay and watch history unfold. We never got back to Crompton.
The following year, Church again, I even took my wife who quite likes cricket but when asked by our other daughter what it was like, said: “It’s just your dad and some other old blokes talking rubbish about mowing grass and stuff.
“The best bits were when they ‘did a lap’ and left me to my knitting,’
Now all this is a roundabout way of recalling that on that visit to Glebe Street, the team I went specifically to watch had the pro make 100, an opener (Crabby no less)* score 50 but collapsed from 203 for 3, 173 without loss at one point, to 228 all out.
Sound familiar?
Accrington’s start on Sunday wasn’t quite as spectacular with Nathaniel gone early and Jacob Clarke out to a decision so puzzling that both scorers were scratching their heads and had to politely ask the umpires at a suitable juncture as the batsman clearly wasn’t sure either (caught behind since we asked.
That brought Jurie in to join Jon Hayhurst at 42 in the 14th over and in exactly 27 overs the pair added 152.
It wasn’t initially easy for either, both took well into double-figures deliveries to get off the mark and runs had to be grafted for and earned but both eventually found some rhythm and fluency particularly as the openers were rested.
Jon, who’s admitted he’s struggled for runs in recent times, pulled and swept well and the pro began to dominate.
The chat around the ground at the 40-over mark was that 280/300 looked a possibility.
As so often happens after a big stand though both departed in quick succession. Jon first with eight boundaries in his 67 then after a flurry of 14 off four balls in the very next over, Jurie missed one, as much a shock to the fielding side and spectators as himself.
Four or five an over for the remaining eight overs would have made a decent total but in truth, the rest was a disappointment.
Only Oliver Lowe, whose youthful talent will surely see him gently move up the order, really looked like he might get on top of the reinvigorated fourth and sixth bowlers as wickets crumbled.
Crompton got off to a racing start and while they became becalmed in the middle overs, Snyman economical and Asad testing, they were never put under too much pressure until the mid-point of their innings when three wickets in seven overs threatened to open and end up while home pro Jamal almost ground to a standstill eking out mainly singles in his 40’s.
But a couple of missed chances and some ground fielding which will need sharpening up handed the initiative back as Jamal got motoring again and found a partner in Williams who displayed stickability our middle-order will need to emulate to back the big guns up.
It seems a bit of a cruel twist of the points system to go completely unrewarded having posted a decent total - you get points if you’re 60 all out chasing 90 which always seems an anomaly to me - but not even a fifth wicket would come to get us on the board.
A day when there were positives then - the pro is looking imperious, Jon could have a breakthrough season if he carries on like he does, Jacob won’t be as unlucky forever, bowlers will bowl worse and find edges and the youngsters will have learned from the experience.
Now then, anyone sure of the way out of this place and home?
