Saturday saw the 1st XI visit some familiar facesat Flixton CC in a game that contained 4 sets of brothers and also included 17 playerswho had represented Clifton.
Unfortunately, it looked like the main talking point wasgoing to be the pitch due to it not being covered the day before and all ofFriday night’s torrential rain landing directly on it. Both umpires were not entirelyhappy to start due to the fact you could literally put your finger in thepitch.
Former Clifton skipper and professional Gareth Cross won thetoss and unsurprisingly stuck Clifton in. The pitch played as expected with someballs pitching and rolling and others popping and spitting over the batsman’shead. Unfortunately, Clifton lost Settle and Meyer quickly whilst Sam battled througha tough period along with professional Ayres. Just as Dorsey was looking settleda leg stump half volley popped and sent the ball vertical off the bat and wewere potentially in a bit of trouble. Hamilton joined Ayres and both went onthe counter. Ben made a brisk 34 in 34 balls and put some serious pressure onthe Flixton attack. When Hamilton fell Ayres continued to accumulate runs butonce he got to 50 he went into overdrive. Ryan took 100 balls to get to 50 but then got to 103 in the next 21 ballswith some ferocious hitting including one which nearly landed in Urmston. It was an innings of immense class and the kind of thing we're getting used to seeing from Ryan. Clifton finally posted 222-9 in their 50 overs which in all honestly was worth around400!
In reply Flixton went with a bit of a chalk and cheeseapproach with Luke Perry going on the attack and Harry Singh playing very muchan observing role. Singh’s barrier was eventually broken when our skippertrapped him in front for 21 of 68 balls and out came Gareth Cross. The feelingwas that this was the key partnership to break with Perry in his forties andCross capable of destroying any attack. Cross latched quickly on to a shortball which was hit hard to the boundary and I think the feelings were he’d got “in”very quickly until Richard Dempster decided it would only be short stay for theformer Clifton pro.
Dempster ran his fingers across one with a bit of rip on itand managed to produce a ball which I genuinely think would’ve removed any batsman.The delivery pitched just outside leg stump and clipped the very top of offstump and meant that Gareth had to go.
A low bouncing shorter ball from Ben and a great piece offielding from Jordy saw the back of McCann and Holt and Clifton tails were up.
There was a brief period of hitting from 2 other ex-Cliftonlads in Hurt and Cheetham but never really enough to worry about. In the endFlixton fell 71 short and Clifton took 5 points back to Manchester Road.