Sam Perry claimed his first win as Alderley Edge First XI Captain at Moss Lane on Saturday since taking the reins at the start of the season with a 4 wicket win over neighbours Cheadle in the ECB Cheshire County Premier League.
Winning the toss and electing to bowl first Alderley's opening pair of Richard Wilkinson and Andrew Windle controlled the early overs with Wilkinson claiming 3-25 and Windle 1-26 as Cheadle fell to 31-4 in the 18th over.
Cheadle's lower middle order played doggedly to set their innings on the path to recovery with 23 from Captain Josh Dooler and 33 from number 8 Will Holmes helping Cheadle to push their total past three figures and 66 not out from number 7 Daniel Williams allowing the visitors to close on 188-7 from their 55 overs, Charlie Reid taking 2-51 for Alderley at the back end of the innings.
Alderley started their reply in explosive style with new signing Ben Kohler-Cadmore clubbing three 6's in hitting 47 from just 32 balls in an opening stand of 53 in only 8 overs. Number 3 Subhaan Mahmood provided a constant presence through the second innings hitting a patient 44 and in partnership with Perry (29) and Richard Wilkinson (28) steered the hosts up to 159-4 in the face of some tight bowling and athletic fielding from the visitors that stopped Alderley from breaking the shackles.
With Cheadle fighting back to reduce Alderley to 179-6 and the required run-rate climbing above 4 an over it was left to the two Charlies, Reid and Barnard to provide the finishing touches, Reid striking the two balls he faced to the fence with aplomb leaving Barnard to seal the win with a lofted drive for 6 with just over 3 overs remaining to claim the 25 points. Josh Dooler was the pick of the Cheadle attack with 2-42 from 15 overs.
Alderley's Second XI were left frustrated with their visit to Romiley cut short in the second innings due to heavy rain. Winning the toss the hosts chose to bowl first and had Alderley in trouble at 39-4 before skipper Andrew Kennedy, with 48, and Jonny Usher with a quickfire 55 from 47 deliveries pushed the visitors up to 144 before being dismissed in 44 overs, Andrew Harrison and Paul Stuart both claiming 4-15 for Romiley.
In the second innings George Valentine continued his strong start to the season with another 5-wicket haul taking 5-20 from ten overs as Romiley tumbled to 45-7 in 18 overs before the weather intervened and snuffed out Alderley's chance of victory, the visitors instead finishing with a 9-point haul from the draw.
On Sunday Alderley's First XI progressed to the next round of the ECB National Knock-out competition as Kidderminster from the Birmingham League conceded the fixture and the Third XI took a point from their cancelled T20 fixture at Hyde which fell victim to the rain.
On Monday the Third XI did take the field at Moss Lane against Macclesfield but fell to a 6-wicket loss mustering only 84 from their 20 overs after winning the toss and batting first, Tom Briggs top-scoring for Alderley with 15 and Chris Moores with 3-20 and Miles Horner with 2-8 the pick of the Macclesfield bowlers.
Alderley came out fighting with the ball in the second innings with 2 wickets apiece for Katie Haszeldine and Arthur Scrase reducing Macclesfield to 20-4 in the early stages but 27 not out from number 3 Rob Jennings and 39 not out from number 6 Ben Winrow was enough to see the visitors to their target without any further losses with 6 overs to spare.
Match report by Andrew Windle.
