Academy Return to Winning Ways

Lindum Academy, under the captaincy of Ollie, had an away fixture at Carholme this Sunday. The Academy were fielding a strong looking team as they looked to gain a win against an in form Carholme side. Ollie won the toss and elected to bat first. Rapid scoring was always going to be difficult on a spongy wicket and slow outfield. Like last week batting partnerships were going to be important and Aiden provided the bedrock of the innings and his opening partner Pranav hung around for a while, negotiating some good line & length bowling before falling for four. Charlie Portlock was in next and was unlucky to receive a very good ball early doors and departed for just one. The next three batsmen stuck around and along with Aiden got the runs ticking over. Zac was out for 12, Ted T-H a rapid fire 22 (including a nice, big 6) and the ever reliable Nabil with 29. With just a few balls left and six wickets down for around 160ish, Ollie came in and along with Aiden was able to take the total to 177-6 from the 40 overs. Aiden with another not out of 84.

With quite a large total to chase, Carholme's opening batsmen started with aggressive intent against opening bowlers Sam Nuttall and Anton, lashing out at anything slightly short or wide. It was good to see the bowlers learn from this and alter their line and length accordingly. This was particularly noticable with Charlie Portlock who, after a slightly wayward first over, responded with some really tight bowling and was unlucky just to pick up the one wicket. With four quality spinners in the side, spin bowling was always going to play a significant part in this game with a spin bowler on from the beginning to the end of the innings. This put some extra pressure on keeper Harry who kept well throughout the innings with some very good takes. The ever reliable Anton picked up another wicket and it was great to see a return to form for Rishabh (6-0-18-3), accounting for Carholme's dangerous opener. Around this time Aiden picked up a nasty knee injury from a direct hit which caused a bit of a delay in proceedings after which Carholme's remaining wickets fell quickly to the spin of Pranav (1.2 -0-3-2), Rishabh and Zac (3-1-6-3). This was despite some dropped catches (you know who you are!!) which left Zac, in particular with steam coming out of his ears. Also worth mentioning the dismissal of Carholme's number eight, Nigel Horner, to a spectacular one handed, diving catch in the slips from his son Ted.
A convincing win showing that, with a decent total to defend, our bowlers are a match for most teams in this division.

Wes Shelbourne