On a fantastic sunny day last Saturday at Chester Edge, with a depleted side, came away with a creditable draw and achieved maximum draw points in an excellent match where all four results were possible with two balls of a 110 over match left to play.
Edge were hoping to bat first and take 10 batting bonus points from the match by scoring 200 within 50 overs, with anything else achieved after that being regarded as a bonus. Having won the toss Edge were indeed able to bat first and whilst never dominating, pushed along at a reasonable rate with good contributions from Mark Currie, Adam Worrall and Jon Steele.
It was Jonny Usher however who rolled back the years scoring an excellent half-century, reminiscent of his glory days when he often decimated an attack without any apparent effort as ball after ball disappeared to the boundary. This was a more circumspect innings as he scored 58 not out off 62 balls but it enabled Edge to make a par score of 231 all out after 53 overs and 10 batting bonus points, with Chester’s overseas spin bowler Ajit Ranjan taking 6 for 75.
Chester were looking to their star batsman, Cheshire’s Warren Goodwin to put them on the road to victory but he was bowled by Alderley captain Jason Whittaker in his first over despite bowling off a restricted run up because of injury. Whittaker also took a wicket with his next ball and from this point onwards Chester were slightly behind on the clock.
Chester looked strong favourites at 175 for 4 but could not get over the line to force victory with Edge also just one wicket short of winning the match in the last over. There was an excellent spell of leg spin from 16-year old Ethan Harding that kept the Chester batsmen in check but it was a 5 wicket haul from slow left-armer Mark Warnes that caused the home side real problems.
A draw was probably a fair result with Edge now in fifth place at half-way and they are the only Premier League side to have lost only one fixture at this stage of the season as they head into the reverse fixtures against the other 11 sides in the Cheshire County Premier League.
Final score in Cheshire County Premier League: Alderley Edge 231 all out Chester Boughton Hall 226-9 Draw.
