For the second Sunday in a row the boys pulled off a dramatic win, to the delight of a partisan crowd almost beside themselves with excitement!

I thought there might be a pitch invasion at the end!

After some fairly dispiriting defeats in mid season we’ve suddenly discovered a will to win that is great to see.

Yet after the Wythenshawe innings ended it was hard to see what was coming.

We could and should have dismissed the home team for 60 or 70. But our catching malaise returned with a vengeance and several drops combined with some shoddy ground fielding helped Wythenshawe to 136, comfortably more than our largest total of the season. Our dressing room was not a happy place and my statements about “forgetting about it and knocking the runs off” were greeted with silence!

Not very Churchillian!

But Robert and David got off to a quick start and spirits rose. When Rob was out the Lees boys came together and put the bowling to the sword with shots all round the wicket. Prior to Sunday David had endured a nightmare season with the bat. On Sunday he blazed his way to 50 not out, supported by his bro’ and in no time we were within about 25 of victory.

Then Wythenshawe fought back, David and Robbie were dismissed and it was left to Adam, Joel, Jay and Harry to inch us towards the winning post. After looking like we would win it at a canter, at the start of the last over we still needed six to win. In came Markus who hit his first ball for four and we were home. Cue bedlam on the boundary!

There were so many twists and turns I was exhausted at the end and I didn’t bowl a ball or score a run!

The game was lost, won, lost and finally won again right at the death and I was so pleased for the boys that they pulled it off with some very smart cricket at the end.

Executing run outs in that situation requires cool heads and they demonstrated that in spades.

All 11 boys deserve great credit though I should probably mention a few personal contributions.

When we batted David and Rob V made a very good start. Rob has got to double figures in every single innings this season, a good achievement, without going on to make a big score.

But a middle order collapse was rescued by a great cameo from Markus with shots all round the wicket. It was great to watch and he pulled the team past the 100 mark and we ended the innings on the up.

David, Jay and Adam made a good start with the ball, keeping things very tight and taking wickets and we looked odds on to win.

Then SW Manchester’s middle order got going and appeared to have won the game by getting to within a few runs of victory with overs to spare.

Robbie Lees had a great game keeping wicket with a stumping and he took a crucial catch standing up to get rid of their danger man.

All our guys then really kept the pressure on at the end and forced SWM into mistakes that gave us the opportunity to pull off a thrilling win.

This means we finish in the top 10 in the league, which is a very creditable result although it was shame to lose three games to the weather.

Didn’t quite go to plan did it?!?

I console myself in the knowledge that actually Wythenshawe bowled very well and caught extremely well and thoroughly deserved their win.

It was not a case of us batting poorly, rather they bowled wicket taking deliveries and proved once again the old adage that catches win matches.

I think their batting is relatively weak which might explain their played five lost five record before Sunday, but unfortunately our meagre total of 27 all out gave us no chance to test that theory.

But apart from providing a painful contrast with some of our own catching this season, I don’t think the boys need feel too disappointed about Sunday. International teams get blown away for very low scores now and again so these things do happen in this wonderful game.

It was always going to be a struggle with nine players on Sunday at Didsbury, even with the home side providing two substitute fielders.

That said, 61 was a disappointing total against fairly ordinary bowling. A quick look at this season’s scorebook tells the story. After our first game of the season in which Robbie Lees got 50, supported by two boys with 21 each, since then we have only had a maximum of two boys per innings getting to double figures when, in order to post a competitive total, ideally four or five players need to contribute good scores.

When we took two quick wickets it looked like we might make a game of it but our fielding was a mixed bag and Didsbury got home with almost 10 overs to spare

The boys fought hard and well on Friday night and (to use the dreaded football parlance) it showed how narrow the margins are between winning and losing.

We were much sharper in the field and kept it up for the full 20 overs. If we had hung on to two or three of our relatively straightforward catches I’m sure we would have restricted them to under 100.

Then chasing 128, Robbie played his second captain’s knock of the season with 49 not out. At  40 odd for one off about seven overs with the two Robs going well in a good partnership  we were in with a strong chance. But sadly for us Sale did not really have a weakness in their bowling attack, runs dried up and we were unable to regain the momentum required.

Still it was an encouraging evening I thought. And guess what! When the original Sunday game was rained off the League classified it as a cancelled match and awarded two points to each team.

My assumption was that Friday’s result would supercede the cancellation but apparently not. The League regards Friday as a friendly so we are two points better off than we would otherwise have been. J

A good effort last night from the boys....we bowled and fielded well with all five bowlers restricting the batsmen, supported by some good ground fielding and catching.

110 was a very getable target but unfortunately we lost early wickets and quickly got well behind the required rate. When we put all three elements of the game together I think we will be competitive, as we demonstrated in beating SW Manchester.

A tremendous start to the new season by our 10 men on Sunday at dry and dusty South West Manchester.

An excellent 50 not out by skipper Robbie Lees, well supported by Robert V and Adam with 21 each produced a competitive 119 against disorganised but dangerous opponents.

Our five bowlers, including Jay on debut, took wickets regularly and bowled accurately, supported by good ground fielding by everyone.  And if we had caught 50% of our catches we would have recorded a very comfortable victory but just about everyone managed to drop at least one (the exception being Markus), to produce a nail biting finish. But we showed good composure in the closing overs to see us home by eight runs.