This week Allscott were up against Newportfollowing their win at Madeley seven days ago.
Losing the toss Allscott were put in to bat, and got off to a very good start with the Starling brothers, Chris (37) and Carl (29) putting on 77 in a first wicket stand. When Nick Watkins was brought into the attack wickets started to fall quickly. Allscott were soon reduced to 83 4, but a tremendous partnership between Andy Withington (72) and Dave Finney (53) enabled Allscott to finish on a respectable 253- 8 off their 50 overs. Best bowling for Newport was from Nick Watkins 5-65 and A Jain 3-54.
Newport’s reply never really got going with wickets falling regularly with some first class bowling from Allscott’s Martin Jones. At one stage Newport were 91-8 but a good partnership between J Coggins (30)and E Parton (28) gave the visitors’ reply some respectability being dismissed for 146.
Best bowling for Allscott was an excellent spell by Martin Jones finishing with 7-36.
On a day of contrasting fortunes the second X1 asked Newport to bat first. Their openers
got off to good start and at one stage were 60 without loss after just 10 overs.
Bowling changes were made and with very accurate spells from John Watson (2-17) and Ian Davy (2-33) got Allscott back into the game, along with good contributions from the other bowlers including new skipper Lee Pickford (3-18) and some excellent catching,
the home side were bowled out in the last over for 205. After working hard in the field it was the batting that let Allscott down. Apart from new opener Matt Higgins (16), Ian Davy (11 not out) and a few lusty straight blows from MarcusClayton (22) the rest of the batting did not contribute. This left the team on 83 all out losing by a large margin of 122 runs.
History was made when Allscott fielded a third team in the Manby Bowdler league Division 7, travelling to Frankwell for a tricky opening league fixture against a strong Beacon second team.
Batting proved difficult against a strong bowling line -up with wickets falling at regular intervals. The Allscott stalwarts proved to be Lewis and Ian Watson, who shared the innings highest partnership (21). The younger members of the team battled to push the score along to 64 before the final wicket fell.
Allscott started the defence well with captain Les Pritchard opening with a maiden over. Youngster, Ryan Hoofe supported well and accounted for opener Holmes clean bowled (14). The first bowling change saw Pritchard replaced by Lewis, who took two wickets. However Beacon’s strength in depth and experience shone through as they chased down the total in 14 over’s to win by 7 wickets.
The Allscott team included five players who were 14 or under in which can only be good for
team building and the future of the club.