Macca Hooton bats
Cheshire County Cricket League Div 2
Ashton on Mersey CC 1st XI 147 all out
Beat
Bollington CC 1st XI 141 all out
Ashton on Mersey kept their survival hopes alive with a hard fought and tense win at Bollington.
Choosing to bat first on a dry track, Ashton were rocked when opener Henry Murray fell to the first ball of the match.
But Macca Hooton and Dave Patterson steadied the nerves with a fine 50 run partnership. With Hooton playing with his usual flare and Patterson giving fine support, the innings looked set fair, before spinner Toby Phipps entered the scene.
Phipps bowled Hooton and Ryan Carey to retake the initiative for the home side. Ashton then suffered two run outs with Patterson and Tom Scott falling to over ambitious attempts at a quick single.
Three more wickets to the admirable Phipps left Ashton teetering on 95-8 before Mike Roberts and Jackson Noske brought some sanity to proceedings.
Noske hit out whilst Roberts played with his normal calm authority to take the score to 139 before Noske became Phipps sixth victim.
When Roberts was last man out, the final score of 147 was below par but a substantially better total than had been feared.
Phipps earned his excellent figures of 6-39.
In reply Noske took an early wicket but Tom Horsfield and Keegan Fortune looked like building the game deciding partnership.
Spinner Mark Weighill broke the pair, dismissing Horsfield for 48, before the introduction of Ashton’s skipper James Marshall turned the match in the visitors’ favour.
Using all his experience, Marshall bowled a probing line which unsettled the home batters. Bollington wobbled and found themselves at 87-6 before Ryan Ouwerkerk dug in to bring the target within sight.
But Marshall was not to be denied and when he removed Ouwerkerk, Ashton had the sniff of victory.
With the tension mounting Bollington’s last pair came together with just 8 runs needed, but spinner Sam Thoburn proved up to the challenge, taking the final wicket to give Ashton a 6-run win.
Marshall finished with a 5-37 match winning effort.
Ashton go into next week’s clash with fellow strugglers Hale Barns knowing that another win will mean their season is still alive.
The Ashton 2nd XI added to the joy by bringing home a win against Davenham at The Beets Davenham 144 all out (Simmons 64, Max Davies 3-16), Ashton 145-8 Max Scott 4-37).
The 3rd XI lost a high scoring contest at Hyde. Hyde 209 -9 (Jamie Richardson 53, Finn Coburn 3-38) Ashton 171 all out ( Charlie Eaton 59, Jamie Richardson 4-21)
James Marshall bowls
