Lancashire & Sussex Battle out Entertaining Draw | Match Report

Lancashire & Sussex Battle out Entertaining Draw

On Saturday 23rd May Sussex Visually Impaired XI (VI Sharks) made the long trip to Manchester for both teams first league outing of the new season. The cup fixture at this venue last year had gone down to the final ball with over 600 runs scored in 60 overs so a high scoring close encounter was expected.

Lancashire won the toss and had no hesitation in asking the Sharks to have a bat. The innings started briskly with Dave Daniels (18) knocking the ball around nicely before being bowled by Shoaib Nazir (2-46). His opening partner Mark Bond had earlier been forced to leave the field after spraining an ankle on the edge of the astroturf wicket. This brought together Si Ledwith (51) and Dan Field (58) together who drove the Sussex innings forwards although the usually rapid Dan Field was also troubled by an ankle injury. Cameos from the late order pushed the Sharks score on to 237-6 in the 35th over before Dan called time on the Sharks innings. Shazab Haider was perhaps the pick of the Lions bowlers with 2-63 off a 10 over spell.

In reply It was clear that Shahab had plenty in the tank despite his long bowling spell and attacked the Sharks mercilessly from ball 1, his innings of 92 off 50 balls was remarkable with 13 x 4's and 2 x 6's one of these a monsterous reverse sweep off of a no ball which will live long in the memory. At the other end the Lancashire batters had a clear mission to just get Shahzab back on strike. When Shahzab was bowled by Deacon Finn (2-28) with the score on 124 any hopes of the win perished. With wickets falling Will Pammenters battling 24 off 47 balls looked to have made things safe for his side until he skied a delivery that was well caught leaving Lancashire on 154-8, four balls to survive for the draw which they managed without further incident or accident. Phil Daniels 3-19 off 8 overs were the pick of the Sharks attack but the innings had belonged to Shahzab Naiter.

The teams must wait just 2-weeks before they meet again, twice in one weekend. They contest the QF of the BCEW Primary Club Heindrich Swanepoel Memorial Cup on Saturday 6th June and then the QF of the David Townley T20 Cup on the Sunday. Both games to be played in Sussex at Bedes Senior School, start times 1pm and 12 noon respectively.

For a full scorecard and statistics from the match, please visit the BCEW Play-Cricket site here.