NORTHERN FALL TO SANDIACRE IN QUARTER FINAL

Date: 4th August 2014

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

A day out with James Cole's team.

Royal London Club Championship: Quarter-Final: Sandiacre Town 181 (44) (Cook 80, S Cole 3-25) beat Northern 157 (42.1) (Smith 67) by 24 runs

And so once again a team from the Med Imaging Liverpool Competition stumbles at one of the final fences in the national knockout. Along with Ormskirk, Lytham and Bootle, Northern have recently threatened to give the league a presence on the biggest day in the club cricket year but none of the three have yet managed to get to the final.

On Sunday, what for many on Merseyside was a 16-hour day, ended in a measure of disappointment when James Cole’s fine team lost to Sandiacre Town of the Derbyshire Premier League by 24 runs at Longmoor Lane, the margin of victory a fair reflection of the difference between the sides.

Cole was left bemoaning Lancashire’s decision to prevent Tom Bailey from playing in the game on Saturday evening, Old Trafford having called up the all-rounder to their squad for this week’s Royal London One-Day Cup games; spectators at the beautifully-presented ground between Derby and Nottingham also wondered what might have happened had Davy Smith not been run out for 67 when Northern were 120 for five in 35th over, needing 62 off ten overs to book a visit to Chorley in the semi-final.

As it turned out, Ollie Swann’s fine swoop and throw were probably the game’s pivotal moments. Smith had batted with excellent judgement for his half-century, hitting ten fours and stroking Marius Conway-Jones for as sweet a six as one is likely to see.

Once the former Bootle cricketer had been dismissed, the Moor Park club were always chasing the game and the departures of Paul Park and Stephen Cole, both caught on the straight boundary, rather settled matters. Northern were left to regret that while four of their middle order had reached double figures, none had been able to play a major innings.

However, Sandiacre’s presence in the last four is not simply explained by Northern’s relative failings. Daniel Wheeldon leads a very good team indeed and if they follow the class of 2003 at Lord’s by winning the national at the Emirates ICG in September, the competition will have a very worthy winner.

In Wheeldon and Ryan McFadyean, Sandiacre surely have one the most impressive seam attacks in club cricket. The skipper’s opening five overs cost one run and six of the first ten overs in Northern’s innings were maidens. After those ten overs had been completed Cole’s team were 10 for two, Greg Platten having been bowled by McFadyean for nought and Stephen Lucas having fallen lbw to a clearly fired-up Wheeldon.

Yet if there were a few frank discussions on the field, there was no lack of good fellowship or hospitality beyond the boundary. For almost its entirety, this was a game played in excellent spirit and there was nothing which a few drinks in the bar couldn’t soothe. It is one thing to have a team which deserves to win the national; it is really another to run a club of that quality. Sandiacre qualify on both counts.

Northern ran them pretty close, though, and at one stage it seemed that the Derbyshire side were heading for a modest total. Defying an ankle injury which will eventually need surgery, Stephen Cole claimed three wickets in ten balls, bowling Andy Rhodes and having Swann caught at the wicket in his second over before trapping James Chapman lbw for eight in his next.

That left Sandiacre on 16 for three and it needed a fine partnership of 104 in 31 overs between Rob Cook and Curtley Read to repair the damage. After Read had been stumped by James Cole off Jack Woosey for 40, Cook continued his work against an attack which bowled very few loose overs, backed up by fielding which lost very little in comparison with the opposition.

Slow left-armers Woosey and Tom Sephton returned combined figures of 18 overs, four for 62, this on a ground with one shortish leg-side boundary. Cook finally fell to Sephton when Ryan Maddock pouched a straightforward catch at deep square leg to end the innings.

By then, however, Cook’s 80 not out had given his team a very defendable total and the wickets of Park and Sephton left Sandiacre’s No5 as a clear man-of-the-match.

For their part Northern can be proud of themselves amid their disappointment.

Once again, a Liverpool Competition team had proved it could compete at the highest level of club cricket and even the journey home proved educational as Phil Sloan informed the company of his travels around the globe and the embarrassing ailments he had been unfortunate enough to contract.