Blog - Howard Clayton - BUCS Semi Final - Leeds vs. Loughborough

15 June 2010

In many respects, this result encapsulated the whole season in just one afternoon. Richard Browning won the toss, as he has done apparently for most of the games this year and duly inserted the opposition, again as usual.

The bowling was excellent, as it has been for most of the season, with splendid economic spells from Brad Kruger and Adam Wilson backed up by very satisfactory fielding.

But finally it was the batting, which has not been the most productive part of the Leeds-Bradford game in Season 2010, that failed to produce its best form and so we fell at the Semi-Final stage of the BUCS One-Day competition for at least the third time and for certainly the second consecutive year, after last year’s disappointment against Oxford.

And it had all begun so well with Alex Blake taking 3-17 from 6 sharp overs to reduce Loughborough to 18-4. A good stand between Alex Welsh (44) and Captain Alan Cope (33) rescued the innings but the bowlers then proceeded to chip away and would have felt very satisfied at dismissing their opponents for 164.

But then Leeds-Bradford lost wickets at regular intervals to find themselves at 82-8 and all seemed lost but Rick Moore, who made the game’s top score of 61, and Craig Williamson (22*) gave hope where none had been as they added 44 for the 9th wicket.

However, ultimately too much remained to be done with too few wickets left and the final total of 141 was 23 runs short of glory.

Leeds Brad MCCU vs. Loughborough MCCU, 14th June 2010 (38 KB)
HOWARD CLAYTON