New Rover Undone By Johnson’s 162
Menston subject the home side to an unchasable 372.
Menston comfortably won by 138 runs, but it was New Rover who began the stronger. With two accurate overs a piece from Carlo Zanella and Aqsad Ali, the home side had Menston at 10-3 in the first four overs. But just as the bowlers started to build pressure, Menston’s number 4 in the order, John H. Johnson started to respond straight away.
Jumping straight into his enormous innings, Johnson hit two boundaries in the fifth and over, pushing the run rate closer to 4. By the time the fourth wicket fell in the fifteenth over, he had already passed his half-century and driven the run rate beyond 5.5 for Menston.
A fifth wicket in the eighteenth over stopped Eddie Killerby in his tracks at 25 runs off just 18 balls, but this didn’t quell the run rate. A partnership of over 150 runs between Johnson and Jack Hartley saw the visitors up to a couple of runs off 300.
Bar a couple of top-edges fortunately landing in space towards the end of his innings, Johnson played convincingly throughout. He thumped all the loose balls away and forced fielding errors with aggression in his running too. His 150 runs off 100 balls (nineteen 4s and four 6s) in the thirty eighth over was well-deserved and had a devastating impact.
The resilient Carlo Zanella bowled out Johnson (162) in the forty-second over amongst a five-wicket bag. However, the damage had already been done by this point, and a final score of 80 from Hartley and an additional 39 from Alex Texel helped Menston on to a first innings total of 372-9.
In bat, New Rover never reached the required run rate of 7.44 but can take some positives from their innings. Most notably, there was a partnership of over 100 runs between Mohammad Khan and Aqsad Ali, at six and eight in the order respectively. Individually, both players can be satisfied with a half-century; and, as part of the team, they put New Rover in a position to take an extra batting point.
The extra batting point required New Rover to reach 225 runs and this they did. Despite Menston taking all ten wickets, six of them belonging to the rapid bowling of Jack Hartley, New Rover batted into the fiftieth over and scored 234 runs. If it wasn’t for Johnson’s huge score in the first innings this might not have been quite so far from Menston’s total.
To conclude with another positive point for New Rover, the work of Lewis Kellett in the field deserves a shout out. He chased down every ball in his vicinity, acrobatically saved a six right on the boundary, and took two catches with a safe pair of hands.
This article can also be found at: New Rover CC
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