On paper Saturdays trip to Denton should have been a one sided affair, taking into consideration the gap in the current league standings between the two sides, however it proved to be a much closer match than anticipated.

After winning the toss, we elected to field first giving the home side first use of what was a decent looking wicket and in the process risk falling short in our run-chase, just like in the same fixture last season.
 
Denton managed to get runs on the board early as thick edges down towards the vacant third man area paid dividends. They reached 39 without loss after 7 overs, with Omar being the main benefactor, as the ball raced to the boundary over a rock hard outfield. We made our first breakthrough when Omar (29) was caught by Duerden off Weththasinghe. Amila was then replaced by Stu Catterall as he and Carl Sutcliffe halted the Denton charge. Catterall kept it tight at his end, whilst Sutcliffe began to take wickets at the other and our dominance restricted the hosts to 80/6 in the 22^nd over.

Martin Parker and John McIlwaine added a seventh wicket partnership of 42, with McIlwaine just swinging from the hip at every ball throughout. Both players were dropped before they reached double figures, with McIlwaines chance being the more difficult of the two. Parker hit a few big blows of his own making 28 before falling leg before to Catterall. Rick Leech joined keeper McIlwaine, who continued his agricultural innings, slogging everything towards the leg side. Leech made 16 before being caught by another Paul Duerden wonder catch running in from long-on and diving forward full length, which was almost up there with his catch at Glossop, to leave Denton 179/8.  

McIlwaine (67) reached his half century before being caught by Weththasinghe with a running/diving catch to rival Duerdens effort, before Sutcliffe claimed his sixth wicket to wrap up the innings on 198, leaving us with 58 overs for our chase. Sutcliffe returned season best figures of 6/73, whilst Catterall claimed an economical 3/42 from 15 overs. In comparison we made a poor start losing our top three with only 12 runs on the board. Both openers were out caught behind off the ever reliable Andy Neill with Holt on the other end of a bad decision before Weththasinghe was caught at mid on second ball.  

However, from that point we did manage to get ourselves back in the game with three consecutive sizeable partnerships, with Stuart Catterall being the main contributor each time during his chanceless textbook knock. He added 39 with Matt Holt (10), 49 with Carl Sutcliffe (28) and 34 with Paul Duerden (18), before eventually falling himself for a fine 66, to leave us 134/6 with 23 overs remaining.

We then lost three quick wickets as the returning Omar bowled two wicket maidens on the trot to reach his five wicket haul, before Neill claimed his fourth of the afternoon and from a position of authority in the game, we were staring down the barrel at 140/9. OJ Beirne joined Matt Curphey and signalled his intend from the off with a textbook cover drive off Omar. The pair played sensibly together, and adopted the approach of respecting Neill at one end, whilst attacking and scoring runs at the other.

With plenty of overs in hand our target of 199 became closer and closer until with 12 runs required for victory our resilience was broken as Andy Neill produced a killer blow founding the edge of Beirne’s bat and the chance was taken at slip. Our final pair had put up a valiant effort, Beirne finished on 23 and Curphey unbeaten on 15, having put on 47 for the final wicket. Omar finished with 5/87, but as usual Andy Neill was the star man for the home side finishing with 5/36 from a marathon spell of almost 26 overs.

Next weekend we take on Denton St.Lawrence at the SCG on Saturday, who are the only team we haven’t yet beaten on our own patch since our LCL return. On Sunday our thirds are in action against Denton West.