Cricket: Nortonthorpe take top spot
Jul 10 2009 By Express and Chronicle
Parton was looking pretty solid having come in at four, and was joined by Spark who top scored in the cup game and the pair took the score to within sight of victory before Sykes bowled Spark off his pads for 18 to claim his fifth wicket.
And he wasn’t finished as he got Scott Croucher with a perfect quick yorker and had Cosgrove really well caught again at gully, this time by Henshaw.
The score at this point was 115-8, with Nortonthorpe needing 14 for victory with just two wickets in hand, one of whom was the injured Paul England who had a typically spectacular fall in the field earlier as he disappeared over the boundary chasing one of Henshaw’s sixes.
Enter Paul Wilkinson, with a grand total of seven in just three innings so far this season, and straight away he struck a cracking cover drive for four off the erratic Stanger, and followed that up with another off Burns, and a leg side boundary too, as he and Parton took the scores to level with four overs still to go.
Somewhat anticlimactically the winning runs came off four byes, with Wesleyans conceding 27 extras in total, to give Nortonthorpe victory.
Parton and Wilkinson were unbeaten on 27 and 11 respectively and once again D Sykes was by far and away the pick off the bowlers as he picked up 7-21.
Nortonthope’s ninth maximum point haul leapfrogged them above Wesleyans into top spot at the halfway point in the season.
Nortonthorpe B visited Cartworth Moor as they looked to maintain top spot in section E. The match ball was again sponsored by Denby Dale News Ltd..
Nortonthorpe batted first and skipper Matt Hayes top scored with 44, with good support from Elliot Hirst and Roger Littlewood who each scored 30’s in a score of 157.
In reply, Cartworth never threatened as Littlewood picked up 5-11 in a man of the match performance that saw his side pick up five points against a dogged Cartworth side determined to get a point. The win sees Nortonthorpe B, as with the A side, well placed the top of their section.
