Not such a "lovely day” for ‘Green’ this time

Hawk Green turned up at Old Glossop expecting, in the words of a no1 hit for Al Green, "a lovely day", but they didn’t count for the fighting spirit of the Old Glossopians.

Hawk won the toss and on the hottest day of the year decided to put OG into bat. Old Glossop lost Dave Stevens early for a duck, playing on to one which kept low (that wasn't to be the last one to keep low on  the day). This brought promising young junior Mikey Parker to the crease to bat with Uncle Martyn "Wolf" Parker, and the pair both struggled against the tight bowling of Hawk. Wolf went to another lowish delivery which bought the returning OG skipper Jamie Cannon to the crease. JC, with his usual disdain for any bowling, soon got into the Hawk bowlers and even though the pitch was still producing regular low deliveries he and Mikey managed to put together a steady partnership.

Old Glossop had a scare when Cannon shouted for a quick single, but Mikey (carrying a thigh injury into the game) sent him back, with JC just making his ground in time. Two overs later another mix up ensued, again JC shouting this time for two and Mikey unfortunately run out by a country mile. Young Mikey cursing his captain every step of his way off the field.

Jon Wright joined JC at the crease, but with little foot movement was always going to find the low bounce tricky and soon departed. A drinks break came and appeared to upset Cannon (29) as he was bowled next ball. Matt Parker came and went (0) caught by the Hawk fielder in his fingertips at short leg. A steady flow of wickets fell with Tory and Twisty both failing to trouble the scorers. However Gerrard kept on going for a well made 20 before he was caught out going for a big shot over mid on.

There then followed a valuable stand of about 20 to take OG past the 100 mark for a well earned batting point, with Mitchell (16) and young Tom Wright (10no) again showing that the tail at Old Glossop are capable of getting late runs. Wright being the top scoring Wright brother for the 3rd time this season.

At tea there was a lot of bickering about the pitch and the low bounce in the OG changing room, that was until the OG Chairman was quoted as saying "If you want to blame anyone about the pitch then blame your captain. He asked for that one wicket specifically to give the bowlers a bit of a chance against the formidable Green batting line up”.

It was then agreed by the OG players to forget about the first half and the pitch and to concentrate on the second half performance. It was mentioned by the captain and other experienced players that Green would struggle and to just keep on plugging away.

Hawk had decided to have a go from the beginning and their captain was in particular destructive form, hitting opener Matt Parker for two fours in his first two overs. Parker dropped two off his own bowling off the other opener (one which Wolf should have called for) before, which was surely going to be his last ball of a poor opening, he removed the Green opener who chipped one to Gerrard to give OG the crucial breakthrough. The Green opener bemoaning the pitch saying " There goes my 80 average."

Stevens soon replaced Parker, and Twist and Stevens began to put the brakes on, before Twist took the first of his six wickets. Mikey Parker, behind the stumps, had the Green batters scared to leave the crease and on a pitch, that even though was getting better, to go back on was suicidal.

With a piece of particular high quality glove work Parker appeared to have stumped Greens no 3 off  Twist only for the square leg umpire to rule not out. Twist and Stevens kept on bowling tight and batsmen came and went regularly, apart from the captain who appeared to have adjusted to the pitch well enough.  Stevens then produced a gem to trap the Hawk captain leg before and Old Glossop sensed it was to be their day. The high class bowling and fielding continued and OG with stunning performances all around, but particularly Twist (6-31 off 16) and Stevens (3-12 off 10) defying their ageing years, to produce match winning efforts the stars of the show.

There were 14 batsmen (and Twisty) bowled on the low Old Glossop track, which left the OG players to thank skipper Cannon for choosing this track.

At the end of the game the Green players were left with redder faces than Dave Donnelly's bum cheeks at the end of the night.