Ramsbottom suffer first defeat of the Season.
Ramsbottom’s great start to the season was brought to a juddering halt at Church by an outstanding performance by the home skipper Levi Wolfenden. Some would say he’s a confident player – he can certainly play and his whirlwind innings was the difference between the two sides.
No indication of what was to come was evident at the start of the game as Church who had won the toss and chose to bat first found scoring difficult against tight bowling from Burdaky and Wynn.
Most of the runs came from quick singles and by the halfway point of the innings the home side were only in the mid 50’s. Things started to change when Rehan Udwadia dismissed Fergusson with the score on 65. This brought the Church Professional – Dayyaan Galiem to the crease , he set about taking the attack to the Rams. This, unfortunately allowed for a drop in standards of the visiting team and runs started to flow more freely.
A brilliant run out by Udwadia then brought Wolfenden to the crease and the carnage began.
The two Church men put together a partnership of 120 in no time and even when Galiem departed for 54 made in 61 balls Wolfenden showed no signs of allowing the innings to falter.
Wolfenden’s 100 not out came off 56 balls and included 9 massive 6’s. This allowed Church to reach an imposing target of 244 on what was not an easy wicket.
A good start was crucial, however the travelling faithful’s hopes of an unlikely run chase were soon dashed when that man Wolfenden trapped the Rammy skipper Tom Parton for one.
Alex Olpin was joined by Simon Hanson and the pair set about repairing the inning – Although they found scoring difficult against some tight bowling they took the score into the 70’s by the halfway point of the innings, albeit Rammy were some twenty runs ahead of what the opposition was at the half stage it would still need a Herculean innings from one of the Rammy batsman.
Acceleration was what was needed but it did not come. When Hanson fell, Ramsbottom’s new professional- George Linde came to the crease and he started to hit the ball hard. However when both he and Rehan Udwadia fell in quick succession the writing was on the wall and wickets then fell at regular intervals as the Rams slipped to 184 all out.
Top scorer was Alex Olpin who showed dogged determination in scoring 78 ,his maiden half century in the first eleven.
Unfortunately the latter order could not match the Wolfenden type knock.
Chances were offered and put down in the first innings but that cannot offered as an excuse as Church themselves dropped several catches. We have to accept that we did not bowl well enough on the day and take our hat off to a guy, who played a remarkable innings.
This game showed how tough cricket is going to be this season and we can learn a lot from it.
Man of the match – Alex Olpin.