Cleethorpes Cricket Club continued their poor run of results when they slumped to a 6 wicket defeat at the hands of Wickersley Old Village on Saturday.
This latest defeat leaves the Cleethorpes Club in 10th position out of the 12 clubs in the 4 Probate & Wills ECB Yorkshire South Premier League.
If they are going to escape from dropping through the trap door and relegation at the end of the season a complete change of form is urgently needed. From a confident looking side during the early part of the season when they were challenging for the top three positions they have now not won since the end of May.
Saturdays game saw another batting collapse when they slumped to 44-5 after losing the toss and being inserted by the visiting skipper. Louis Kimber, who was back in the side after recovering from injury, was the only batsman who looked confident. He calmly hit three boundaries in his brief innings which ended when he played across a full length delivery and was bowled after scoring 21.
Rain caused a 45 minute stoppage which gave Cleethorpes the chance to shelter from the unchanged attack of Luke Shutt and Gary Park. On the resumption Basheeru Walters and Joe Baker both batted sensibly and built the only partnership of the entire innings. Together they added 45, which almost doubled the score, before a misunderstanding resulted in Walters being run out after being sent back when looking for a single.
The innings finally ended in the 37th over with the scoreboard show a disappointing 104 with Baker still there, undefeated, with what was his sides top score of 24.
When the visitors replied Walters had them in trouble with a fiery spell of pace bowling. His aggression had the Wickersley batsmen playing and missing on several occasions before he got just reward. Within the space of three runs he had reduced the visitors to 25-3 and that could so easily have been 25-5. One chance was put down while another edge had flown over a leaping fielder and too the boundary.
The Cleethorpes side constantly changed the bowling as they searched for further success but were unable to disturb either Gary Park or the experienced Thomas Knight who added 59 for the 4th wicket .
Only 21 were needed when Park drove loosely at Harry Costello’s opening delivery to give a simple catch to Rollinson in the covers. Gareth Purshouse then assisted Knight, who hit 1 six and 7 fours in his 46, to reach the target in less than half of their allotted overs.
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