On a wonderful Summer afternoon, Year 10 travelled to Rivington and Blackrod hoping to progress into the quarter final of the Bolton Cup.
Sharples lost the toss and were forced to open the batting. Our captain, Marcus Jackson, immediately found his rhythm, hitting a number of boundaries and quickly reached a total of 31 before being caught and bowled. Mohammed Habib continued to hit the big shots and top scored with 41 before being caught on the boundary. Rehman Afzal (32) and Shahzeb Mukhtar (13 no) also helped the team reach an impressive total of 131 runs.
Our opening bowlers, Jackson and Afzal, appeared to have too much firepower for the opposition and wickets began to fall. Sharples’ top scorer (Habib) produced an incredible one handed catch – on the boundary – to dismiss their captain. After that, Rehman Afzal stole the show taking an incredible 4 wickets in one over to bowl the opposition out for a total of 36.
The following day, Year 9 looked to emulate the success of their peers when they travelled to St James’. The team are an impressive outfit and have two district players (Taylor Biggar and Matthew Senior) on the side. However, this wasn’t to be enough and Sharples struggled to put runs on the board making a total score of 44-6 off 16 overs. It was always going to be a difficult lead to defend, and this proved to be the case, as St James’ surpassed the total with relative ease.
Next week, Year 9/10 travel to Ladybridge, on Wednesday, to participate in a friendly fixture.