On yet another warm Saturday, the 1st XI travelled to Darlington RA for the biggest game of the season to date. Coming into the game the two sides were only separated by 3 points atop of the table as each outfit were looking to claim the days points and distance themselves on the table with only a handful of games remaining in the season.
Captain Nathan Rimmington won the toss and elected to field first on the slow and dry Darlington wicket. As they have for most the season the opening pair of Tom Hewison and Adam Hickey of the RA started well, navigating their way through a challenging new ball spell from the bishop bowlers seeing them to 70 without loss at the early drinks break. However, the momentum of the game would quickly shift as the Bishop spin twins Steve Chapman and Craig George would go onto to remove the opening pair, Chapman dismissing Hewison for 31 and George dismissing Hickey for 54 who within his innings passed 1000 league runs for the season, quite the accomplishment with 5 rounds still to play. With the game evenly poised at 90-2 enter Ian Grainger. The allrounder had been building some good form with the ball in the weeks leading into Saturday’s game, in which he broke the stalemate of the contest and bowled a magnificent 10 over spell with the incredibly economical figures of 3/16. Which opened the gate for the bishop bowlers to really put a dent in the RA batting innings. The RA tail wagged as the pair of Callum Buckley (22, out to chapman) and Liam Hickey (18 not out) provided some resistance to get their score to 165 all out in the 49th over after the dismissal of Andrew Russell (1) courtesy of the bowling from captain Nathan Rimmington (2-53) who as well as Steve Chapman (4-49) supported the efforts of Ian Grainger tremendously.
In reply, the Bishop innings started well with Jack Rutherford continuing his good form and putting scoreboard pressure on early. Until the first bump in the run chase was reached when Steve Chapman (5) was dismissed by the left arm spin bowling of Andrew Russell who proved to be a thorn in the Bishop run chase all day on the dry turning wicket. At 3 entered the ever-calm Craig George who throughout his stay of 61 not out proved to be the rock in the bishop innings that was greatly needed. After the dismissal of opener Rutherford (33) again at the hands of the bowling of Russell (6-19) it left the bishop run chase at 71-2, from that point onwards on the deteriorating wicket runs and momentum were hard to come by trying to navigate the challenging spin bowling of Andrew Russell and Adam Hickey. As the Bishop batting order slowly chipped away at the score a constant fall of wickets left the RA bowlers within striking distance of the points, Bishop would soon find themselves at 90-4. Important stays at the crease from Grainger (14) and Dan Legge (14) helped ease some of the nerves of the run chase as they supported the calm and collected Craig George who seemed unbothered by the pressure of the game’s situation. In Russell’s final over of the innings he struck twice removing both Dan Legge and Jacob Dinger to bring the score of the chase to 134-7 with only a handful of overs remaining for Bishop to chase the total of 165. Next into Bat was club veteran David “Shakey” Taylor, though the nerves were high in the Bishop dugout as was the pressure on the field, the pair of Taylor and George were both seemingly unfazed by the gravity of the moment and marvellously navigated their way to the total of 168 off the bat of the “ice cold” Craig George to secure the points. In which the partnership between “Shakey” and George has been described by team as one of the most impressive and important of the season to date.
Bishop currently sits 17 points clear atop of the league table and will take on Marton CC 2nd XI in next week’s feature at home.
