Saturday June 5th 2021

Well, what a run fest that was!  1,028 runs scored by our 4 Saturday teams as the 1sts and 3rds recorded wins, the 2nds a winning draw and the 4ths a strong batting performance in a loss.

The 1sts were at bottom of the table Mansfield Hosiery Mills hoping to consolidate on their wonderful bank holiday win at Wollaton and move further up the table.  After winning the toss and electing to bat, skipper Ben Shaw and Savin Perera made a good start putting on 62 for the first wicket.  However a middle order wobble saw the team slip to 121 for 5 before a well focused partnership between Zak Tribe and Lucas Stentiford took the score up to 162.  This allowed for some powerful hitting in the later order from Zak, who finished on an unbeaten 56, James Tilbury (28) and Arjun Sandhu (an unbeaten and what turned out to be crucial 14 off just 6 balls).  The 8th wicket partnership of 63 between Zak and James is the highest recorded for Attenborough in the NPL.  The innings closed on 247 for 8 off the 50 overs.

The Mansfield Hosiery Mills reply was always up near the required rate and wickets were not easy to come by, particularly in the first 30 overs.  A superb piece of fielding from George Barker secured a run out and saw the Squirrels start to take an advantage.  However, some good powerful hitting from the lower order kept Hosiery Mills in the game, and with two overs to go and with two wickets left they needed a very gettable 16 runs to secure their first win of the season.  But then along came James Tilbury to bowl his final over. Just 3 singles off his first 4 balls saw the pressure mount significantly on the batsman and contributed to James securing the win by bowling two batsmen with consecutive balls and also securing a second entry on the NPL honours board with a 4 wicket haul.

A huge sigh of relief (again) from the Squirrels and some sympathy for Mansfield Hosiery Mills who competed so well throughout the game. The 1sts are now 7th in the league.

The 2nds were at The Strand playing against Cavaliers & Carrington 3rd XI in another high scoring game.  Batting first the 2nds slipped to 62 for 5 before an unbroken 6th wicket partnership of 226 between Neil Thurlow 120* (3 6s & 13 4s) and Will Shields 86* (11 4s) took the score up to a formidable 288 from the full 48 overs. In reply, Cavaliers eventually had to settle for a losing draw finishing with 256 for 9 and frustrating the 2nds from recording an outright win.  Youngsters Zain Ali and Mason Tolley were the pick of the bowlers with 3 wickets apiece and there was also a fabulous bit of fielding from skipper Alistair Lee that was a major factor in dismissing Cavaliers top scorer.

The 3rds took on Gedling Colliery 3rds at the university ground in a rematch of their T20 midweek winning cup game.  Batting first there were good contributions from Ben Sheppard 45, Andrew Mooney 55 (his first fifty for his new club) and Evan Goldman 42, in his first game for the 3rds.  However, the star of the show was Tim Sanders who remained unbeaten with a maiden league century of 118 (7 6s and 11 4s) in a daunting total of 304 for 5 off the 45 overs.  Unsurprisingly Gedling Colliery were never really in the game and were eventually bowled out for 113 in 43 overs.  Skipper Charlie Simkiss with 4 for 29 and James Binnie 3 for 21 were the main wicket takers in the 191 run win.

The 4ths travelled to East Leake to take on Ellerslie 3rds who put together an impressive 231 for just 1 wicket from their 45 overs.  In reply a 52 run opening partnership between Carl Knight and Patrick Ryan saw the 4s get off to a good start and then contributions from a number of players including skipper Sam Randall 32 and Ben Black 47*, saw the team close on a much more than respectable 189 for 8 wickets.

Graham Shaw