Sheffield Collegiate Cricket ClubOne of the world's finest cricket clubs

Collegiate 200-7 (Adams 64, Nads 31, Blade 31)
Rotherham 189 all out (Nads 4-61, Dicko 2-29, Jones 2-25)

Sheffield Collegiate came through a tense finish to their game at Rotherham on Saturday to win by ten runs, and make it five wins from six in the league. Batting first on an overcast, humid day, Rotherham’s opening bowlers managed to generate swing and plenty of movement off a green wicket. Blade and Charlie dug in well until Charlie got a faint nick against Yorkshire’s Sanderson that brought Dave ‘Grizzly’ Adams to the crease. Blade was going well until he middled one down mid on’s throat for 31. 72-2. Ed came to the crease, helping the score tick over while at the other end Grizz started taking the attack to Rotherham, hitting four sixes on the way to his first fifty of the season. Macca picked out deep square leg to leave the score on 101-3, and with the score on 128 Grizz hit one straight up that the keeper snaffled. Patmore and Colton found runs hard to come by, struggling against the spinners to keep the score ticking over, and both departed in a short space of time for 18 and 11 respectively. With eight overs left Nads played a swashbuckling innings of 31 off just 26 balls, and was ably assisted by Josh Jones who hit 14. The Collegiate innings came to a close with the score on 200 exactly.

Then came a very bizarre innings of cricket played by Rotherham. One of the openers came out all guns blazing reaching his 50 in quick time, however at the other end wickets fell regularly, Kam removing the other opener for 0, and Josh Jones picked up his first wickets for Collegiate’s 1st team, bagging a quickfire brace. The score was 42- 3, numbers 2, 3 and 4 having managed a single run between them, highlighting the fact that the opening bat remained a danger. Rotherham took the score past 100, still only three wickets down, plenty of overs left in the bag, and looked to be strong favourites to win. However Collegiate’s spinning duo had other ideas, first Nads removing the danger man and Dicko getting in on the act, and 101-3 soon became 134-7. Collegiate were now in the ascendancy, and when Josh ran round to take a good catch for Nads’ fourth wicket to leave Rotherham nine wickets down, still needing another 40 to win. However there were still 20 overs to go, such was the nature of Rotherham’s run chase, that the final pair were content to nudge the singles around, playing some highly unorthodox shots on the way. After Nads got deposited for a six over square leg, only 12 more runs were needed, and what was seemingly a foregone conclusion was now a butt clenching tense finish. Collegiate came through in the end, thanks to Blade holding on to a loopy catch off Kam, after Dicko had rotated the bowlers. Cue plenty of relieved sighs all round, and Collegiate win their fifth league game in six.

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