A weekend that saw a T20 group decider, an inaugural GHCC Sports Day, another rained off Harriers game, and the JW Lees Lancashire League season reach the halfway point for our 1st and 2nd XIs. Oh, and a draw.
Reports this week courtesy of Jason Kayley.
OK I might still do the T20, oh and I might do Saturday too.
Friday 26th June
T20 vs Colne
All your dreams are made
When you’re one win away from a quarter final place
Tonight’s the night that all the world will see
We took on Colne on Friday in the final T20 game. Top of the table, but sharing the position with tonight’s opponents and Nelson, who narrowly inflicted our first defeat last week.
With only two teams progressing, and Nelson playing Burnley at the same time who could also reach 6 points and progress with a big win, tonight’s game was effectively a straight shootout, the winner reaching the quarter finals, with the loser in all likelihood going out.
Another sunny afternoon.
The teams were warming up. Captain Kaz, a major doubt having picked up an injury early in last Sunday’s league defeat against Crompton, was passed fit, and into the side came Chris Oddie and Samuel Davies, who had been excellent in one of our early games.
We lost the toss, and for the first time in this year’s competition found ourselves batting first. Out strode Caleb and Kasim looking to get us off to a flyer. But they found things hard going at first, just two runs scored off each of the first three overs, and five from the fourth.
A change of bowling and Kasim decided he wasn’t waiting around anymore. Plopping Senapathi’s first ball for 6 and following up with another boundary two balls later, before doing the same to both Walker and Kumara in the following overs.
By the time Caleb was out for 7 in the 8th over, the score was 43, and whilst Kasim followed for 36 five balls later, we had the beginnings of something to build on.
Siraj joined Thikshila de Silva in the middle, and they started to push the quick singles we saw work so effectively at Accrington. Siraj hit a big six into the car park, but was out to a tidy caught and bowled the very next delivery.
Captain Kaz came in and hit a quick 26 off just 15 balls, before being stumped off a wide, and de Silva was starting to tick alongside him, adding a couple of boundaries to his relentless single scoring.
Sheraz followed Kaz and kept the score ticking over, and with three overs to go were 113-4 and those of us watching were thinking we would need around 130 to give ourselves a real chance.
Now would be the time to wake up
Now would be the time to wake up, wake up
And wake up we did. de Silva took 27 off the 18th over, and hit the first ball of the 19th for six too before being caught on the edge trying to do the same. He hit 46 of 26 ball. Chris Oddie joined Sheraz and got himself off strike with Sheraz picking up 4 more. 12 off the over, suddenly the score moves past 150.
The last over proved just as destructive. Chris hit the first ball for six, before hitting one straight at a fielder then pushing one to long on and calling immediately for two. Sheraz turned down the second when there was comfortably one there. His way of saying leave this to me.
And he justified this choice, finishing the innings with 4, 6, 6. 23 off the over, GHCC close 175-5. Our highest score in all of this year’s T20 games. A real chance.
But this was Colne. Colne are a team that are more than capable, but have a professional in Kumara that loves a run chase. There have been countless times, including in this year’s T20 game against Church, in which he’s got them over the line from positions in which they’ve looked all but beaten. As obvious as it sounds, his wicket would be critical.
Out we went to defend our total. Former GHCC player Ismheel Shakeel was opening the batting for our opponents.
We know how this goes by now. Thikshila and Sheraz opened up, and took out both openers in the first three overs. But not, as was previously the case, without cost to the scoreboard. 11 runs of the first over, 10 off the second, and with Kumara now at the crease the runs continued to flow.
By the end of the powerplay, Colne were 47-2 and looking well placed. Game on!
Enter Samuel Davies. He’d previously taken 2-6 from his 4 overs in his only foray into the T20 world this season, our opening T20 game at Church, but hadn’t played since. Back in the team today, it was clear he had a point to prove.
Third ball of his first over. Plopped for 6 by Alcock.
Fourth ball, wicket. Caught by Jack Hancock.
First ball of his second over, wicket, Senapathi bowled.
Second ball. LBW shout, not given, leg bye
Third ball, Kumara on strike. Wicket. Stumps splattered everywhere!
Danger man gone. 68-5 and suddenly the target of 176 was looking a long way away.
Runs kept flowing, but so did the wickets. Davies picked up a fourth, cleaning up Rimmer for 3, before Tillotson was run out by de Silva and Walker followed, caught behind first ball of the bowling of Sheraz.
Dominic Steele took his obligatory T20 wicket, bowling Shahzaib who had counterpunched well, hitting 26 off just 16 deliveries including 2 fours and 2 sixes, before Kasim finished the job. Luring Hussain by letting him hit a massive six first ball before switching things up and trapping him LBW. Colne all out for 133
And as our entertainment for the evening AJ Walker kicked into life with Oasis covers, we could celebrate, knowing our 4 wins and one solitary defeat would be enough to send us through as group winners and into the hat for the quarter final draw.
The draw would take place, and go exactly to plan, at 10am tomorrow morning.
What’s the story, morning glory… Well.
On to the next one.
Saturday 27th June
No scheduled fixtures today. It’s an LKO weekend and that means all Division 1 fixtures are moved to Saturday to facilitate our teams’ games on the Sunday.
Division 2 games remain on a Sunday. This means no 3rd or 4th XI cricket all weekend and therefore, a Saturday in which Evolve Document Solutions Cliffe Park is free and available.
So of course we filled it with a full afternoon of entertainment. The inaugural GHCC Sports Day.
More on this later, the small matter first of a T20 cup draw
T20 Cup Quarter Final Draw
I need a little time to wake up, and so did Greg…
So, waking up with all the glory of a new morning still bristling from the excitement of the previous night’s victory (and celebratory kebab), we had the small matter of the Quarter Final Draw. Excitingly, this would be livestreamed for the first time ever, on Youtube at 10am via Norden CCs channel.
As a group winner, we would be a home team, and couldn’t draw second place in our own group, which was Burnley, who had won against Nelson last night and stolen second place having started the evening back in 4th.
So we could draw any one of the other three second place teams, Haslingden, Ramsbottom or Enfield.
We got a little pre-draw insight from Rochdale’s captain, looking resplendent in his boating jacket, who was there to draw the balls. He spoke for a few minutes on the good things happening at Rochdale before we got to it.
Initially, a draw for which tie would host finals day. Tie 1 was drawn.
On to the draw itself.
Lowerhouse
will play…
Burnley
Lowerhouse vs Burnley in the first tie, and the winners of this game will host finals day.
Great Harwood…
will play
And then it froze.
On hitting refresh, it jumped to the words
den will play Haslingden
and then it froze again not to return.
We thought we had drawn Haslingden. But when the draw was announced on the league website a few minutes later, confusion in club WhatsApp feeds.
Great Harwood vs Ramsbottom.
Turns out we hadn’t drawn Haslingden, we’d drawn Ramsbottom.
Or had we?
Later in the day, the League Exec determined there had been an issue with the draw from the point immediately following the drawing of Burnley for tie one.
As they had been second in the group Lowerhouse had topped, Enfield’s ball had been removed from the bag for the draw for tie one. But they had not been replaced for the remainder of the draw.
It was deemed necessary to redraw the remaining ties from the point the error was made.
This redraw was done at tea in the Norden vs Lowerhouse game.
We drew Enfield.
Chaos, but we got there in the end. There is an explanation and apology from the league to the clubs and all involved here.
After at some point being of the belief we would take on all of the three potential opponents, the outcome is we face Enfield at home, this Friday 3rd July, starting at 6.15pm.
It will be free entry for all, we’ll have the café and bar open from 5, pizza van on site, and we might have asked our entertainment from Friday to run it back one more time.
Come and support Great Harwood as we look to make it to finals day for the first time.
GHCC Sports Day
Right, now we’ve got that all straightened out, lets move on to Sports Day.
A Paul Newton concept, this would involve multiple sports throughout the day, letting us showcase our club to anybody wanting to become a part of it.
Starting at 12 midday, first up we would have our Harriers Women’s team, take on our Drinkers XI.
Owing to availability, the former was more of a select XI comprised part of players and made up with friends and partners or parents, whilst our Drinkers XI is a reg-tag band of former players, junior parents and club supporters led by Mark Sheridan who prefer watching with a pint than actually taking part.
The Drinkers ultimately won, but this wasn’t about that, it was about bringing people within the club together and absolutely succeeded on that front.
Following this, we would have a cricket six a side competition, open invitation so long as teams made themselves known to the organisers before 2.30pm.
Running alongside this would be Bowls taster sessions, with members of our bowling section showing anybody interested how to play crown green bowls and encouraging them to give it a go.
This would conclude with a bowls competition, whilst a BBQ would cater for those in attendance.
We would then move inside for an open darts competition, and conclude with showing the England vs Panama World Cup game at 10pm.
A great day and night for the club, and something we’ll undoubtedly look to repeat next year.
Here are some photos of the day
Sunday 28th June
Harriers at Darwen
Nothing to report on this one sadly as the game fell foul to the weather before a ball was bowled on Sunday morning.
Our Harriers are next in action on Tuesday night at home against Feniscowles
1st XI at Church
The Firsts promotion push suffered a setback as they made the short journey to Oswaldtwistle to take on Church and Ossy.
The skipper Stuart Maher took four wickets, with Sheraz and the pro taking two each as they restricted Church to 154 all out.
The chase got off to a sticky start and they were reduced to 67-8 before the tail wagged hard with the skipper bringing up the rear with an unbeaten 23 in a 37-run partnership with Nathan Sheridan (21). We were all out for 134 and pick up 5 points in defeat.
The only highlight was the return of Matt Oddie after an awful facial injury.
2nd XI vs Church
The Twos maintained their push for title glory at their Church counterparts with a six-wicket win.
Church chose to bat first and put on 197-7 with Ciaran Holden the pick of the bowlers with 4-43.
And the batters made short work of the total with Jack Hancock top-scoring with 87 not out, with handy contributions from Freddie Campbell (35) and Hamza Qayoom (39) as they coasted home with eight overs to spare.
They lead Junior Division 2 by two points.