The Prestwich second string arrived at Woodhouses to discover that their first eleven had chosen not to put the covers on the night before and given the overnight rain there was a good chance of a spicy wicket.
First objective, win the toss and put them into bat.
We then had an intense warm up which must have looked a complete shambles to the opposition, particularly as Tom Gibson practiced dropping as many catches as he could. The two captain’s tossed up and to our utter amazement Woodhouses won the toss and elected to bat.
Prestwich took to the field and opened up with Pete Lorenzini and Johnny Walters. It was no surprise that the pitch was pretty lively to the say the least and our bowlers were making full use of the conditions. Lorenzini had their opener nicking his first ball behind only to be denied by sloppy glove work and Walters who had now brushed off last nights exploits probably felt like Curtley Ambrose as he steamed in and struck the same opener with a ball rearing off a length. Despite having to go off retired hurt, given the conditions Woodhouses had made a reasonable start reaching 32 without loss.
Gibson felt it necessary to practice one last drop catch before deciding it was time to play properly. First he took a very sharp catch off the bowling of Lorenzini before coming on to bowl and taking 3 quality wickets as well as another catch from the bowling of Walters in a great individual performance. Walters himself showed no mercy to the Woodhouses batsmen picking up four wickets in an impressive showing, a crazy run out accounted for another wicket and the cheese chipped in with one wicket.
Prestwich required 92 to win, which on a lively wicket was not something that was being taken lightly. Openers Ford and Taylor gave the team a great platform putting on 45 for the first wicket with Taylor in particular having spectators dashing to move their cars, unfortunately for Walters he was too late.
Scargill came in at 3 and continued to give the innings impetus with a crucial knock of 20 and as wickets began to fall McAndrew, never a man to get phased by the pressure situation, hit the ball well and chipped in with 12.
Prestwich slightly stuttered over the line in the end but Montgomery and Armstrong steadied the ship to allow the team to complete it’s target with four wickets to spare.
