Martley triumph at Feckenham
In a rut and struggling to field two sides the Martlets travelled to the lovely Feckenham ground on Saturday desperate to get as many points as possible with a side made up of half the second team, but we all know a game of cricket is not played on paper. F’ham won the toss and asked the visitors to bat, against a lively opening attack James Ganderton decided his best option was to go on the offensive, riding his luck striking boundaries on a regular basis while Elsie Birchley dropped anchor. Steady progress was made to 117 when Birch cut one to point to perish for a patient 27, O’Birchley came and went which bought in Karl ‘fortnightly’ Baker in at four replacing veteran Martley slogger Tom Vale. Bakes immediately upped the tempo and with Gandy now getting his range with four sixes in his vital run a ball 108 before chipping a soft one to cover. In came skip Christian Mulvihill who started where he left off last week and along with Baker rattled along to 256 before some hesitation led to Bakes (37) being comfortably run out. Martley closed their innings on 260, CMH 51* with four sixes two of which went crashing into neighbouring properties.
With only four frontline bowlers in the side finding all 50 overs was going to prove a challenge. Life was made easier for Martley when opening bowler Tobey Roland Jones grabbed two early victims, at 12 for 2 F’ham had to dig in rather than making the most of the early fielding restrictions. Eamonn O’Birchley (2/33) bowled a tidy 10 overs keeping a lid on things, but home captain J Griffths (51) and Mehmood had taken the score onto a well set 113 with plenty of overs left. In his second over ageing seamer Basford seamer took two wickets in two balls and for the 400th time in his career failed to take a hat trick, the damage was done F’ham reeling at 113 for 6. Not long after Mehmood sent up a straight forward catch to Dan Mayfield who conspired in trying to take the catch ‘Aussie’ style contorted himself into a prone position on the turf, this was to prove a turning point as Mehmood went on the attack and along with youngster Eost put the home side in a winning position. On 222 Mehmood(76) took one swing too many, stumped by Elsie. Eost(41) went for one audacious ramp too many and played on to Stratty who took a deserved wicket. Another stumping for Elsie off Gandy saw the home side all out for 228 and a much needed victory for the visitors.
