(pic: Ryan Nixon in smashing form)

On Saturday, Tintwistle CC welcomed Hayfield CC to the Speedwell Cricket Ground in Round 8 of the DCCL. Fortunately, the local area had been lucky in terms of the weather and after a brief wait the game was able to go ahead.  Tintwistle won the toss and asked the visitors to bat first.

The home side got off to a fantastic start with both Hayfield openers losing their wickets without troubling the scorers. Pete Higginbottom had G Wood (0) lbw and Alex Brown snared A Ebbrell (0) caught behind.  G Davies and Russ Evans came in at 3 and 4 respectively and needed to steady the ship. Evans is a class act and has been a thorn in Tintwistle’s side in the past. He batted very well and was unlucky to be bowled after the ball deflected off his elbow on to the wickets for a composed 51. Davies contributed a useful 26 before being clean bowled by Stuart Rose. Rose was in the wickets again picking up the wicket of talented left hander Julian Burgess (14).  With the score on 118-6, Tintwistle were looking to put a swift end to Hayfields innings. L Ward-Armstrong made 10 runs and along with the tail helped to push Hayfield to 144-8 after the full complement of 39 overs. Worthy of mention was the bowling of Ryan Nixon who extracted maximum value from the damp track and racked up two stumpings thanks to some swift glove work by keeper Kez Davies.

The pick of the bowlers were Stuart Rose who finished with solid figures of 3-37, Pete Higginbottom (2-17) and Ryan Nixon (2-12).

In response, Tintwistle Skipper James Pool would have hammered into his team not to make the same mistakes as they did in last weekend’s banana skin cup game against Dove Holes. Pete Higginbottom and Karl Handforth opened the innings and got off to a solid start. Higginbottom scored 37 before being bowled by Ebrell. Handforth made an equally positive contribution of 41 being bowled by Adamson. Matt Robinson scored  9 before being bowled by Ward-Armstrong. Ricky Harris made a useful 26 before being judged lbw of Ward-Armstrong. At 137-5, there were some nervous players outside the home dressing room! However, in strode Ryan Nixon and James Pool who had a couple of commanding cameos. With 3 sixes between them and 2 fours, they drove Tintwistle over the line finishing on 148/5 with 2.3 overs to spare.

It was a tremendous contest and Tintwistle were worthy winners. Next weekend the 1st XI travel to Woodley.

Meanwhile, the Tintwistle 2nd XI picked up a very impressive victory in the corresponding fixture at Hayfield.