Young Ben Allcock has had to wait a long time for his first run in the first team. The bright, young prodigy opened last year with two successive ducks – and, a year on, he suffered again last week at Hyde. So his relief could be felt from the boundary edge when he finally got away from the blocks at Wirral on Saturday. The result was startling, the smile back in Ben’s batting with 78 mostly quality runs and 14 fours in his unbeaten stay. Last year’s U17 skipper even made Ned Kelly look a little sedate in their fourth wicket stand of 95, to which Ned, happy to give him his head, contributed 28. The result of this mayhem in the heat was that Alex Barber could declare at 204-4, giving us five extra overs to dismiss the winless cellar club. We didn’t need them…They were bowled out in under 43 of those 50 overs, still 47 runs short. And our second successive 25-point victory was enough to put us into joint fourth with Bunbury(79) in the Meller Braggins Cheshire League Div. 3 table. That leaves us 26 points short of leaders Woodford(105), whom we face at home on June 12.

It wasn’t just Ben’s day. Rick Holt and Tom Rolph got us off to our best start of the season, putting on 83 in 21 overs before Rick was out, five runs short of his third 50 of the campaign. Stuart Milne(4) and Rolph(41) soon followed, but the platform had been laid for Allcock and Kelly to profit and have Wirral running and sweating hard in the broiling sun. The home side had lost all their previous four games, looked drained by the leather-chasing in the heat and faced a big victory target. But they showed heart and took some rolling over. Skipper Barber reacted wisely to the heat, restricting his pacemen to short spells and keeping them as fresh as possible. He also led the way with two catches, one of them special, helping Nick Fithon to four wickets. Andy Bashford was equally spectacular with a diving one hander at square leg and Tommy Roberts’ underlined his quality in the field, snaffling opener Roberts(29) with another acrobatic effort. Watt(44), Peal(20), Cocker(15) and Gambles(21) led Wirral’s gutsy resistance which ended with Billy Flattley trapping Devling lbw.

Scores: Romiley (39 overs; 204-4(Allcock 78no, Holt 45, Rolph 41). Wirral (42.4 overs; Watt 44, Fithon 4-31, Kelly 2-39, Flattley 2-21, P.Garner 1-17, Barber 1-39)