Lindow Draw Sees First XI Move Top

Brooklands First XI moved to the top of the CCL 1st XI Division 2 with a batting first draw over the outgoing league leaders, Lindow CC at The BCG this weekend.

An excellent all-round batting performance was required if The Bears were to extract anything from this fixture and that was exactly what was provided as Lindow won the toss and put Brooklands into bat.

Skipper Jack Bagshaw (32) continued his solid run of form and the opening partnerships with the matches top scorer David Cunliffe (41) is beginning to get the team off to some good starts.

Kevin Carroll, fresh off the back of 3 impressive centuries in the last 4 weeks (170 off 82 vs Warrington, 188 of 77 vs Weaverham and last weeks 152 off 61 vs Tattenhall) also made a start but was caught by Major Khan off the bowling of Alex Matthews (2-67 off 13) before he had a chance to unleash the fireworks the Georges Road crowd have become accustomed to seeing this season.

Excellent contributions from Ali Buchan (31), Aidan Khares (25) and Caleb Jones (24*) pushed the home team to a very competitive 211-7 as the 50 overs were up.

All round team efforts require all round individual efforts and there was no doubt this was in the mind of opening bowler AJ Hart as he went about tearing up the Lindow top order.

The home team profited with Hart having underperformed with the bat with him paying the team back by removing 4 of the Lindow top 5 including the dangerous Major Khan (40) on his way to figures of 4 for 56 off of 15 overs.

Caleb Jones backed up his impressive batting performance with an equally impressive bowling performance taking wickets at both ends of the innings finishing on 2-43 off of 10 overs.

Kevin Carroll also came to the party picking up a couple of late wickets and as the visitors sensed defeat, the runs dried up as the overs ran out. Lindow finished on 153-8 off of their 50 overs salvaging 6 points from what easily could have been a loss.

A much more balanced team performance this week from The Bears saw them through a tough top of the table match and the same will be required next Saturday when they travel to a Mobberley team who are hovering precariously above the relegation zone.

Could promotion be coming home for The Bears this season?