A disappointing and frustrating afternoon at East Lancs Paper Mill put a huge dent in the hopes of promotion this season, with the 2s now a daunting 16 points behind the leaders, Horwich, and 9 points off today’s opposition.
It all started so well, where the new opening bowling attack of Tom Worthington and Dan Jones had the hosts reeling at 3/3 after 5 overs, with the ball constantly beating the bat. The opener Masood was also dropped with a regulation chance in that opening burst which would have really had them reeling.
East Lancs rebuilt with a solid 90 run partnership to get them back into the contest, before Liam Dorsey made the important breakthroughs to dismiss the dangerous Asif (56), followed by the opener Masood (31) who held their innings together.
A superb run out from Tom Worthington then triggered a flurry of wickets to restrict the hosts to 175, which looked well below par on this postage stamp ground.
Tom was outstanding upfront with 2-14 from his 7 overs, with Liam 9-1-37-3 and Dan 9.3-1-37-4 both posting impressive figures.
If the early catches had been taken it would have been target nowhere near the 175 required, but scores like that are regularly mopped up by this batting line up.
This week’s “wide watch” yielded only 8, so down 5 on last week’s total. At this rate I’ll have to find something else to pick fault with each week.
The returning McManus (23) opened up with Oscar Thorpe (0), and it was the youngster who was first to fall, followed by his captain lobbing one up to leave the visitors 34/2.
Dan Jones was joined in the middle by Owen Hogben, where the pair of them batted as we have become accustomed to in recent months, looking in full control of the contest; despite Dan batting with only his top hand on his bat after fracturing a finger during the first innings.
With Dan’s 12th half century of the season just a run away, an uppish drive was caught at cover by the diving overseas to dismiss him for 49, bringing Sam Winstanley to the middle with just 63 runs required.
Over the next 20 minutes or so, 113/2 became 120/8 as the middle order imploded when faced with a ball swinging around corners.
Owen (33) was bowled, then two balls later Sam (1) ran himself out going for a two that was never on, before the last ball of that over saw Liam (0) hit on the pads and the finger go up.
Two overs later, the same bowler then got Luke (0) and Tom (0) snicked off behind, before a 34 run partnership from Lewis Keogh (21) and Charlie Seddon left Clifton needing 22 to win with only one wicket in hand.
Elliot Hogben (6) and a superb burst from Charlie (23) got to within 6 runs of the required total before Elliot was bowled, leaving the visitors agonisingly short of chasing this one down.
It was a game that swung backwards and forwards throughout the day, but ultimately left the visitors heading home feeling disappointed and frustrated at another missed opportunity.
You can point to the dropped catches in the first innings, but a side of this quality should be knocking off 175 without much fuss. This game was lost with the bat, not with the ball.