WHAT a contrast in days weather-wise this weekend. Saturday dawned wet and left many of us wondering if we would get a game in and Sunday after a poor early start, finally greeted us with sunshine. The joys of an English summer!

My game at Walkden on Saturday was late starting due to a damp outfield but by 2.40pm the game was able to get under way for a 40-overs match. Farnworth batted first and at one stage were struggling to get a respectable total, due to some good bowling from Tahir Maqsood and Jonathon Fowler.

However, good knocks from Nakash Qamar and Simon Booth saw them reach 200.

How nice it was to see Walkden fieldsman Maqsood admit he didn’t complete a catch as it bounced just in front of his hands. A good piece of sportsmanship.

One of Farnworth’s batsmen was out run out for failing to hold on to his bat when diving in trying to avoid being out. If he had held on to it he would have been in but, much to his disgust, the force of hitting the ground made him let go and was duly given out. The same batsman then proceeded to view the game from a different vantage point. Anyone who knows Walkden knows about the big tree on the edge of the ground.

Well, much to everyone’s amusement the batsman was soon seen climbing up it and perching among the branches where he watched the game for a few overs and was certainly the talk of the game at the interval.

Sunday saw me at the Hamer Cup semi-final at Horwich, in the sunshine. This proved to be a close game with both sides at almost the same situation at the 40-over mark. FSC batted first and made 157-8, scoring 65 runs off the last 10 overs.

When it came to Horwich’s turn they needed 68 off the last 10 but despite a fine 46 from Ryan Chaisty they were unable to reach FSC’s total.

Runs were hard to come by from both sides due to some very tight bowling. Four bowlers in the match had 23 or under runs scored off their 10 overs. What was excellent to see was the over rate. After hearing about very slow over rates on Saturday, both teams bowled well inside their time limit of 3hrs 15 mins.