Championship Division round-up for 18 June

With one game to go to the half way stage in the season, Aston Hall reign supreme, with only one loss in ten league games. Hallam move back up to second, after Wickersley lost to a remarkably resilient performance by Houghton Main. Shiregreen and Conisbrough both won comfortably. At the bottom, Collegiate 2nds were the only winners and gave themselves a little breathing space. 

 

 

Aston Hall completed their tour of the lower part of the table with scarcely a flutter, although they were some way from bowling out Barnsley, who might even have won under DLS had they got more of a move on. Joe Stickland and Nasir Omar largely saw to the main result. Omar made 64 out of a partnership of 104 for the third wicket and Stickland then stuck around, notably with Lewis Sansome, to score 83 in 121 balls, not departing till 236-6 and assuring his team’s ascendancy. Barnsley found themselves chasing 252 with rain clouds gathering and had some promising partnerships. Zak Jahangir made 66 in 83 balls but things slowed down a bit in the middle, especially against a spell of ten overs for 17 runs from Omar. When they came off for rain, DLS said they needed 30 in three overs and although they got back on and tried, they could only manage half that. Still, it gave them four points for getting 90% of the revised target of 206, which kept them just above Collegiate. 

 

Aston Hall 252-8 (50) Joe Stickland 83, Nasir Omar 64, Lewis Sansome 35 

Barnsley Woolley Miners 2nds 188-6 (42) Zak Jahangir 66, Nathan Swift 32 

 

 

Conisbrough and Wath have been on different pathways recently and Saturday’s game really emphasised the problem. At the moment, Conisbrough are all playing together with everyone contributing, to the batting at least, so they have been able to generate competitive totals and win matches. Wath have four strong batters whom they rely on. On Saturday, Ainsley Swallow was unavailable, Bradley Williams was out early on, James Barnard made 41 and Rob Barlow 33 not out, but no-one else made more than four and the team was all out for 98. Conisbrough meanwhile, had made 225, despite losing their openers for three between them. Of the rest of their batters, none made 50 but seven got into double figures and even last man, Tom Humphries made 25. The bowling wasn’t quite such a team effort. They rely very heavily on Buddhika Sanjeewa who is the top wicket-taker in the Championship and picked up another five wickets, for 49, and Hassan Bin Shahab, who took 4-23. Rob Barlow also took four for Wath, but, unusually, was not quite so economical. The consequence of all this is that although Conisbrough are only one place above Wath in the middle of the table, they are now sixteen points ahead. 

 

Conisbrough 225 (46) Hassan Bin Shahab 45*, Hamzah Ilyas 37, James Doran 36, Rob Barlow 4-80 

Wath 98 (23.3) James Barnard 41, Rob Barlow 33*, Hassan Bin Shahab 4-23, Buddhika Sanjeewa 5-49 

 

 

Hallam just managed to beat the heaviest rain to complete their match with Green Moor, though they were already well ahead on DLS. Chris Matthewman, as he often does, held the Green Moor batting together and was well supported by Chris Snaith, and especially Wayne Hughes, who looked in much better form. Harry Airstone helped push things along at the end to a challenging 208. Ed Burch bowled very steadily for 3-52, Harman Puni winkled out the later batsmen, which he has been doing so well this year and there were two stumpings and two catches for Liam Mitchell. A challenging score began to look formidable in the icy wet wind when Hallam were 35-3, and Dymock gone, but it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good and as Joe Cooper and Will Coates settled in to build a reply, poor Green Moor got colder and colder. Cooper took the score to 115-4 and Harman Puni joined Coates to whisk the game away. Chris Matthewman and Jack Rodgers bowled most of the overs and took all of the wickets between them. They had the warmest hands. It was hard for the others. 

 

Green Moor 208 (49.3) Chris Matthewman 53, Wayne Hughes 41, Harman Puni 4-49, Ed Burch 3-52 

Hallam 212-4 (40.5) Will Coates 76*, Harman Puni 43*, Joe Cooper 43 

 

 

Wickersley started the game second in the Championship with Houghton fourth. They ended fourth behind Houghton, and by the scores, Houghton clearly deserved it, but it was another upside down game, of which there have been a few this year. Houghton’s first two wickets made 34, their last two 105. Wickersley’s first two made 31, their last two 67. The middle orders of both teams were an even sorrier state. Apart from Matty Bowering who made 55 for Houghton, numbers five to eight for both sides combined made 23 runs, and it was similar in Wickersley’s game last week. Then 18-year old Charlie Harrison made 28 at number 10 in a powerful match-winning stand of 60 with Abu Sufyan. This week, promoted to number 9, he made 47 not out, putting on 67 with Ahmad Bashir, but the game had gone by then, because Houghton had done even better. Michael Brown and Matty Bowering had helped them recover from an indifferent start to 134-4. Then Ahmed Bashir took four wickets for very few and yet Houghton made 249-9, which was due to an amazing unbeaten last wicket stand of 73 between Michael Brown (who carried his bat for 65 not out in 132 balls) and Usman Khan who smashed a remarkable 46 not out in 28 balls at number 11. No wonder Wickersley were a tad deflated when they started their innings. Oliver Blackburn did his best to pull them round and then there was Charlie Harrison at the end, but they could only raise 168 all together. Frustrating, disappointing for them, but a triumph for Houghton! 

 

Houghton Main 249-9 (50) Michael Brown 65*, Matty Bowering 55, Usman Khan 46*, Ahmad Bashir 5-77, Mark Cummins 3-49 

Wickersley Old Village 168 (41.4) Charlie Harrison 47*, Oliver Blackburn 34, Matty Bowering 3-26, Dylan Smythe 3-58 

 

 

It was going to happen some day. Hamzah Younis has had such a good season, and is in such a rich vein of form, that sooner or later he was going to play a very special innings. Unfortunately for Rockingham, it came against them. It must have been fantastic to watch – just not from the bowler’s end! He scored 163 in 90 balls, with ten 4s and sixteen 6s – that means from Rockingham’s point of view that in the 64 balls he faced without scoring a boundary, they restricted him to just 27 runs! – that’s a better way to look at it. Other batsmen were playing. Shiregreen had made 74-3 before he came in, and in their 5th wicket partnership of 189, Shohaib Khaliq made 43, in 84 balls. After he was out, bowled by Hedar Rasool, on 308-7, Shiregreen made another twenty runs and were all out with an over still to play. To their great credit, Rockingham did not allow themselves to be overawed by this masterclass in batting, they set out on the chase and had only lost three wickets by the time rain ended proceedings. Harry Grindle had made 45 not out in 115 balls, putting on 74 for the 1st wicket with Ben Dalton, who made 38 in 77. Mikey Denton raised the tempo with 31 in 19, which at 1.6 runs per ball was not far behind Younis’s rate of 1.8. If they had been able to carry on at the same rate for the remaining balls in the innings, Rockingham would have scored about 220, which would have been very respectable. Unfortunately, it all ended with the rain on 40.4 overs and Shiregreen were declared the winners by 105 runs, using DLS. Hopefully, people will remember the day not for the rain nor the result but that they were there when Hamzah Younis of Shiregreen scored 163 in 90 balls and it was fantastic! 

 

Shiregreen 327 (50) Hamzah Younis 163, Shohaib Khaliq 43, Zobair Khaliq 3-57, Hedar Rasool 3-61, Jawad Akhtar 3-80 

Rockingham Colliery 132-3 (40.4) Harry Grindle 45*, Ben Dalton 38, Mikey Denton 31* 

 

 

Collegiate have been determined to get a good start all season and they did so emphatically on Saturday against Sprotbrough, with Nick Gaywood and Adam Burkinshaw putting on 87 for the first wicket, and Burkinshaw then going further and adding 117 for the second with Michael Goodchild, taking the score to 204. All three of them made scores of 50 plus, Burkinshaw nearly making 100 and nearly carrying his bat. Unfortunately for the rest of the team, it took all but four of the allotted overs and so there was a quick flurry of runs and wickets to get as many as they could before the end, so at the close it was 233-7, with Scott Mantovani the grateful recipient of five of the wickets. Sprotbrough unfortunately, could not quite manage the same concentration. Thomas Pepper and Alex Rudkin put on 41 for the first wicket and Sadrian Ward contributed 38, but wickets fell at regular intervals - to Ben Fielding in particular, who ended up with 5-25 in 9 overs – but also to Lewis Bent and Tate Miller – the last four on the same score, 142. The result leaves Collegiate 2nds within touching distance of Sprotbrough now as they continue their climb out of the mire and leaving Green Moor and Rockingham in some difficulty 

 

Sheffield Collegiate 2nds 233-7 (50) Adam Burkinshaw 84, Michael Goodchild 67, Nick Gaywood 52, Scott Mantovani 5-74 

Sprotbrough 142 (39.2) Thomas Pepper 41, Sadrian Ward 38, Ben Fielding 5-25, Tate Miller 3-47 

 

 

League table & leading averages 

 

Full scorecards