Cockermouth take spoils

Jun 5 2009 by Our Correspondent, Dumfries Standard Friday

ON A beautiful sunny Sunday at the Kingholm last weekend St Michael’s Sunday XI met Cockermouth in a match played in the friendliest of spirits.

Having lost the toss, Saints were put in to bat by visiting captain Andrew Mason.

Colin Taylor and Ahmed Mahmood started in solid fashion against some very tidy bowling from Harden and Ward and some beautiful leg spin from Todhunter.

They added 59 in 15 overs with some splendid hits from Taylor who shepherded his younger partner through some tough and painful times early on in the partnership.

Mahmood was unluckily run out for 13 and when Taylor retired on 41, Kieron Moore and Mark Wharton carried on at a good run rate until they were both out for six and seven respectively.

After a rare failure from Pat Sullivan, caught for one, the score stood on 95-4 after 28 overs and a total of 150 still looked on.

However the next eight overs yielded only 10 runs as Leon Stannus blocked the bowlers out and was eventually out for 0 in the 36th over with the score on 105.

Thankfully the visiting captain allowed the game to extend to 40 overs and Dylan Muir and Connor Bowie, who both batted carefully, managed to scramble the score to 121 in the last four overs.

The Cockermouth batsmen all looked very capable despite Saints’ best efforts to slow them down with a heavy tea.

The first 16 overs went for only 38 runs as Wharton, Chris Lumb, Ahsanul and Ghazi all bowled well.

Inevitably as the bowling got weaker the run rate got faster, particularly from Daly who batted splendidly for 44 retired.

The total was passed with 10 overs to spare but the captains decided to play the full 40 overs to give everyone a bat and a bowl.

Everyone enjoyed their day and there are obviously some very talented players at Cockermouth, particularly the youngsters.

They will always be made very welcome at the Kingholm and Captain Mike Lumb would like to thank Andrew Mason for the spirit in which his team played.

The man of the match award went to Colin Taylor for his careful introduction of Ahmed Mahmood into the mystic arts of opening the batting.