12:00pm Thursday 18th June 2009
By Rachel O'Connor
Earby gained a fine eight wickets win over Blackburn Northern, with Ali Azmat giving a superb performance, after restricting their opponents to 187-6.
Rudra Singh and Mini Bhada gave Northern a solid start with a stand of 31 but Singh was first out, bowled by Richard Craddock for 20. Bhada was eventually stumped by Mathew Garner off the bowling of Ali Azmat for 51. Ammer Mirza also made a good contribution of 40 off 55 balls, with 6 fours, before being caught by Daniel Helliwell off Azmat. Northern’s professional Naeem Ashraf failed to trouble the scorers being bowled by Azmat without scoring. Munaf Bawla then produced a final flourish to the innings with an unbeaten 32 off 30 balls. while Shani Mirza made 17no. Azmat finished with a fine 5-39 off his ten overs.
Earby chased from the outdset with opener Aron Pollard making 39 before being caught by Naeem Ashraf off the bowling off Tariq Hassan.
Fellow opener Stephen Pickles hit five fours in his 42 before being bowled by Bawla.
Azmat then completed his match winning display with an unbeaten 52, which included ten fours and came off 50 balls.
He shared a match winning third wicket stand of 85 with Matthew Haines, who finished unbeaten on 42, which came off 39 balls and included two sixes and three fours.
In Friday’s Twenty/20 game Azmat was again the hero smashing 117 as Earby totalled 187-7. Richard Craddock chipped in with 23. Clitheroe were then rstricted to 163-7 with Paul Gaskell making a half-century, Paul Turner 29 and Mark Preston 21no.
Earby seconds defeated Blackburn Northern seconds by six wickets after dismissing them for 90.
On Sunday Earby thirds gained a seven wicket win over Great Harwood, who were dismissed for 81 by some superb bowling from Alex Yates (4-29) and Paddy Kenny (3-25).
With Ryan Sumner making 38no and Shane Taylforth 28 Earby coasted to victory.
Settle first team continued their winning ways on Saturday, helped by a magnificent all-round performance from professional Brent Findlay in their match at Barnoldswick’s Victory Park.
The hosts won the toss and put Settle in to bat, to which Mark Verden responded in usual style, hitting seven fours in his forceful innings of 45. This was followed by key contributions from Findlay (65) and Tom Davidson (66), who took the bowlers to task with some excellent hitting, both batsmen striking sixes and fours in abundance and in rapid time.
This pair provided the lion’s share of the Settle innings, but there was fine support from under-16 player Will Davidson (21) and from Tim Larmour (12), making his first-team debut late in his career.
Settle’s total of 227-7 was their highest this season and this was always going to be a challenge for Barnoldswick. John Tarbox and Brent Findlay took apart the top five of the batting line-up, who only managed 31 runs between them. The key strike was the removal by Findlay of Sri Lankan professional Roy De Silva, who fell for a duck to a catch by Will Davidson.
There was good resistance from the Barnoldswick lower order in the form of Jamie Oldfield (32), Liam Bedford (26), George Braithwaite (25) and Michael Scothern (23), but the damage was done by then.
Nick Cokell picked up two catches and Will Davidson claimed an economical wicket, but Findlay’s 5-57 stole the show.
However, this performance would not have been possible without extremely tight bowling from Tarbox, who pinned the opposition down to the tune of four wickets for 25 runs from 14 overs, eight of them maidens.
Settle skipper Tim Green, currently out of action with a knee injury, expressed his delight saying: “We are well up the table and full of confidence. All our batsmen have made at least one big score this season and our bowling is very hard to get away. Our paid man Brent Findlay took a while to get used to English conditions, but his batting and bowling get better with every game.”
Settle seconds played host to Burnley Belvedere and were dismissed for 113. There were good contributions from David Shepherd (27) and captain Nick Cook (25), with a tidy effort from under-15 player Damon Barrett (11).
Belvedere lost four wickets as they knocked off the runs in 20 overs, but there was an excellent bowling spell from Barrett, whose five overs picked up two wickets at the cost of only six runs.
Settle’s third team made the most of an inexperienced Blackburn Northern attack to rattle up a huge 264-7 on Sunday. Andrew McCracken (82) dominated the innings with yet another fine knock, extremely well supported by half-centuries from John Marshall and Will Davidson. Tom Strickland made 22 and David Hulse got a chance to strut his stuff with 24 not out.
Settle took only 33 overs to see Northern off, bowling them out for 127 with star bowling performances from McCracken (5-50) and skipper Nick Cokell, who returned 5-37.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/trade_directory/