Date: 26th July 2010
A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.
ECB Club Championship
At Moor Park: ECB Club Championship: Round Five: NORTHERN 194-6 (45) beat WEST INDIAN CAVALIERS 117 (36.3) by 77 runs
In the Almanac of Britsh Politics the eminent psephologist Robert Waller writes of the Crosby constituency that it has "a very desirable residential area around Blundellsands and is home to a number of institutions which consider themselves elite: Merchant Taylors' School, Waterloo Rugby Club, Northern Cricket Club, and also the excellent non-league soccer team, Marine F.C." Well, it's no bad thing for a group of sportsmen to view themselves as members of an elite, as long as they back up their belief with hard work and proven performance, and on Sunday afternoon James Cole's cricketers took a step nearer the pinnacle of the recreational game when they qualified for the quarter-finals of the ECB Club Championship with a thoroughly deserved 77-run victory over West Indian Cavaliers.
Northern may not be the best team in the top division of the Bridging Finance Liverpool Competition in 2010, but this week at least, every club in our league can be just a little bit proud of them.
Now it should be acknowledged that Cole's team had two big advantages on Sunday. Firstly, the former England bowler Alex Tudor could not play in the game because he had sustained a groin strain the previous day. (It must also be said that this did not stop the ex-Surrey player turning up, supporting his team and chatting with spectators of both sides.) Secondly, due to the torrential rain on Merseyside in the week prior to the game, the Moor Park wicket was slower than usual, a factor which prevented the Nottinghamshire Premier League side from chasing down 195 to win in the type of conditions they apparently prefer.
But Northern's victory cannot be explained by a dodgy groin and some freakish weather. Instead, it should be put down to an excellent team performance in the second half of the game and to the fine innings played by Chris Tipper and Paul Park which enabled the home side to set a target which proved well beyond their visitors. For all the plaudits Tipper has received this summer, he can rarely have played more fluently than he did on Sunday. Batting with authority almost from the first ball he received and executing his shots with crisp assurance, he reached his fifty off 52 balls. He seemed set to score fifty more too, when the umpire ruled that Park's attempt to sacrifice himself after a mix-up between the batsmen had not succeeded, and that Tipper was run out for 56. It was impossible to find anyone around the ground who agreed with this decision, and the official, to his great credit, apologised to the batsman after the game.
Yet if Tipper's innings was an illustration of burgeoning talent, Park's was a demonstration of flinty resilience, not least because the player knew that he shouldn't have been at the wicket. However, seemingly unruffled by the arrival of Colonel and Mrs Cockup in the 24th over, the ex-Liverpool player went on to make 60 not out and guide his side to a very defendable 194-6. For West Indian Cavaliers, medium-pacer Orson Nurse bowled well to take one for 27 and Aqib Afzaal clung on to a brilliant one handed catch to get rid of Sean Terry for 18; but the former Zimbabwean Test seamer Tinashe Panyangara went for 51 runs off his nine overs. The Nottingham side clearly missed Tudor. After the first two overs of their innings, the visitors were missing both of their openers too: Morteza Ali was pinned by Richard Stanyon and Afzaal gave a return catch to Michael Jones when the ball stopped a tad. One run for two wickets is rarely a decent platform for a successful run-chase and when Tipper held on to a fine catch in front of the sightscreen at the Pavilion End to get rid of Andy Hayes, Cole's men had half a step in the last eight. "I'm getting nervous now," said Mike Bishop, and ordered more lagers. The ex-President and his coterie of thirsty pundits on the steps needn't have worried. All of Northern's bowlers did their job, Stephen Cole finishing with three for 35 and Tipper, four for 20 to add to his 56 runs and two excellent snares. If there had been a man of the match award, he might well have edged it. James Cole kept wicket well and got rid of the dangerous Dominic Williamson with a stumping of the highest class. Steve Atkinson held the Cavaliers' innings together with 32 without ever seeming capable of changing the course of the game. The east midlands team were eventually dismissed for 117 in 36.3 overs.
"I thought we played some great cricket although we were 20 or 30 short of where we wanted to be," said James Cole. "However, it was a slow wicket and a slow outfield, so maybe 190 here was as good as 220 or 230 in normal conditions. I wasn't overly disappointed when I found that Tudor wasn't playing, but given the way we performed today, even if he had turned out I think we would have still won the game comfortably. "Richard Stanyon and Michael Jones set the tone with the ball and we hardly bowled any loose deliveries in their innings. As for Chris Tipper, he's been batting like that all season. He's one of those fluent batsmen who scores runs so easily that he finds it too easy at times. In my eyes he's right up there with Steven Mullaney and Karl Brown. John Wildman will come back into the side for the game at South Northumberland and that will give me more options as well as some difficult selection problems. We've got 14 players for eleven places at the moment."
And so a week on Sunday a bus or two will set our from the Moor Park pavilion with its lofty trophy cabinets and wood-pannelled war memorials and head for Gosforth where South Northumberland, or "SouthNorth", champions of the North East Premier League in six of the last seven years, play their home games. It should be a formidable challenge for Cole and his players, even if "SouthNorth versus Northern" sounds like an extract from a shipping forecast rather than a prestigious cricket fixture.
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