Heywood’s third team made the short trip to Bury for their penultimate game of the foreshortened season hoping to avenge their defeat earlier in the season and to make it a clean sweep over the weekend with both the first and second teams winning the previous day.
Heywood won the toss and asked Bury to bat first on a wicket that looked like it might offer some assistance to the bowlers and so it proved early on with Graeme Taylor taking the valuable wicket of A Raza who had batted through the innings in their previous meeting. Both Taylor and Tom George at the other end bowled excellent line and length and made runs hard to come by and it wasn’t long before Taylor took his second wicket with the score on 21 in the tenth over.
Young off spinner Connor McNally was brought into the attack and he immediately settled into his rhythm and maintained it to the extent that he was able to bowl through his maximum 10 over spell taking 3 wickets along the way. However, with the big hitting H. Fairclough still there and the wicket easing, Bury still harboured hopes of posting a competitive score – that was until George was brought back into the attack with devastating effect. Bowling at a good, accurate pace he took the wicket of Fairclough for 48 with the score on 118 and in what seemed like no time at all almost single handedly had Bury all out for 131 in 36 overs. This was reward for a luckless first spell and he finished with the fine figures of 8.2-1-13-5. Mention should also be made of Callum Jackson and Tom Moulton who whilst wicketless, bowled ten good overs between them in support of the wicket takers.
Heywood’s reply got off to a rocky start and they lost Charles Stanford Campbell and Dan Openshaw with only 13 runs on the board. However Joey O’Neill joined Matt Hood at the wicket and the experienced pair set about repairing the early damage, which they did to some extent before O’Neill fell for 14 with the score on 64 in the 13th over. Jonny McCulloch joined Hood and the pair settled into a partnership that looked like taking Heywood over the line before Hood surprising fell for an excellent 55 to add to his unbeaten 99 from the previous week, with the score on 96-4.
McCulloch continued to accumulate runs before he too was out for a well made 19 with the score on 111 (the dreaded Nelson!). However the young Heywood middle order knew they had lots of time and they chipped away at the deficit and whilst there were a few minor scares along the way, the target was reached with 8 wickets down in the 33rd over.
So another fine victory for the young Heywood side who showed the values of bowling a good line and length and displayed the patience needed when chasing down a score.
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