Cricket: Barlaston make it four wins on bounce

NSSCL Division One

by Allan Smith

BARLASTON took another step towards captain Neil Davies's target of 12 wins to regain their Premier place, with an 83-run victory over Kidsgrove.

Four victories on the trot since the arrival of Sri Lanka Test player Niroshan Bandaratilleke has kick-started Barlaston's promotion challenge, after they took a long hard look in the winter at the way the club was going.

Long-serving Davies, below, agreed to take over reins as skipper and the experienced Mark Stanyer was persuaded to abandon plans to retire.

Davies said: "We made a positive decision to change the way we approached things as a club.

"We signed Banda, who we knew was a proven professional. Richard Sharp, who lives in the village, had already agreed to join us and we managed to sign former players Phil Walklate and Ramzan Mohammed.

"We are also starting to see the benefit of the youth set-up we started six or seven years ago.

"Phil Taylor is doing a great job with the youngsters in the second team and they are top of the league.

"The under-17s and under-15s are also top of their leagues and we have some good youngsters coming through now.

"There is a real feel-good factor in the club and we need to keep that going."

Having initially agreed to take on the captaincy for one season, Davies admits he is considering whether to extend his time in charge.

Having won the toss, Davies elected to bat first and go for the 25 points, and his tactics worked perfectly as the home side posted a decent total of 185-9 before bowling the visitors out for 102 with 13 balls to spare.

The victory came despite the absence of four key players, and Davies admitted: "This week's selection committee meeting will be interesting. It is great for us to have competition for places."

The four replacements all made useful contributions to the Barlaston victory, none more than the captain's son, Jack, who struck 30 from only 38 balls.

The 15-year-old Trentham High School student overcame a shaky start to ensure Barlaston recovered from a potentially hazardous 109-5, before skewing a ball to backward point where Ian Bailey took a well-judged catch.

The Berrisford twins opened the Barlaston innings on their recall to the first team, with Rob scoring six out of an opening partnership of 15, while Dave shared a second-wicket partnership of 38 with professional Niroshan Bandaratilleke before departing for 11.

The fourth of the promoted players was 14-year-old Tom Taylor and, after scoring an unbeaten eight at the close of the Barlaston innings, he took two useful catches to help ensure wickets continued to fall in the Kidsgrove response.

A first league half-century for Bandaratilleke since his arrival at Barlaston was the cornerstone of the home innings.

The 34-year-old former Stafford player struck eight boundaries and two sixes in his 65-ball innings of 63, to help justify Davies's decision to bat first.

Pakistan one-day international Najaf Shah enjoyed his return to his former club with figures of 4-49 from 23.1 overs, showing the commitment and desire which had made him a firm favourite within the Barlaston club before his close-season switch to Kidsgrove.

Left with 55 overs to chase down their victory target of 186, the Kidsgrove opening pair of Jason Jinks and Dave Wellings found runs hard to come by, with only 13 coming from the first 10 overs. After the departure of Jinks, bowled by Mohammed for nine, the visitors began to make inroads into their target.

However, following the dismissal of Pete Brookes for 26 and Wellings for 19, the innings began to crumble.

From 65-3, there proved to be little resistance against the all-spin attack of Bandaratilleke and Stanyer.

Chris Highfield's dogged 32-ball innings ensured a second batting point for Kidsgrove, before Bandaratilleke wrapped up the win with his sixth wicket by dismissing youngster Mitchell Spencer.

His spin partner Stanyer finished with 3-25 to take his season's tally to 28.

Davies said: "I'm very happy. It's nice when what we plan to do works out. Banda did well, but we played around him and we have to continue to do that."