There’s a new star in the Romiley firmament….Sam Astley, 16-year-old son of Martin, took five wickets in Romiley’s eight-wicket home win over Alderley Park on Saturday(July 10). Sam, standing in for holidaying Billy Flattley, hid the loss of our leading wicket taker with much intelligent use of his seamers. Just as he did at Warrington last week, the medium pacer troubled everybody—only this time he had proper reward for his skill. He was not flattered by outstanding figures of 11-3-28-5, including two stunning catches off his own bowling. He played a major part in our eighth Meller Braggins Cheshire League Div 3 win in nine games and we enter the second half of our campaign still nine points clear of Woodford in the promotion race. It was a sweet victory for Alex Barber’s men. Sixth placed Alderley Park came here with, bizarrely, the division’s only unbeaten record and the fact they had drawn seven of their 11 games showed how hard they are to beat. We found that out in our Cheshire League debut when they decided fairly early that chasing 214 for victory against our bowling was beyond them. They set out their stall to survive and that, to our frustration, is what they did. We learned that day that our best chance of victory was to make them bat first and then aim to knock off the runs.  That’s what happened. The skipper put them in, struck twice in his first four overs and only opener Rahi(33) of the first six batsmen reached double figures. Double strikes by Ned Kelly, who bowled Rahi, and Astley, both aided by fine Stuart Milne slip catches, left the visitors on 69-6 and in deep trouble. Goldshaw(28) and Fitch(13) did stage a mini recovery before Astley returned to dismiss the seventh-wicket pair with those special catches, one when he nearly needed to be double jointed to reach sideways and backwards and the other to hold a shell of a drive that stuck in his right hand. He then sweetly bowled Butterworth to give him his coveted ‘five-for’ and Alderley Park finished modestly on 125-9.
  Rick Holt has been going through a rough spell with the bat by his standards, but he and Tommy Rolph took us nearly half way there with another half century stand before being parted. They had put on 64 when Rolph, who played for his Cheshire age group on Thursday, poked spinner Goldshaw tamely into silly mid off’s hands. That only let loose prime form Andy Bashford. The No 3 saw himself in quietly before gradually accelerating and almost catching Rick who became becalmed with his 50 in sight. They carried us to 124 when Holt was bowled by the persevering Butterworth. It then took two balls for Ned Kelly to deliver the winning runs.
Scores: Alderley Park 125-9(45 overs: Rahi 33; Astley 5-28, Barber 2-28, Kelly 2-8). Romiley 128-2(30.4 overs; Holt 48, Bashford 44no).
**The victory sets us up nicely for this week’s double header – Saturday’s revenge bid at Disley, the only team to beat us this season, and Sunday’s home Cheshire Shield tie with Div.2 leaders Lymm Oughtrington Park.