Shropshire Star

Oswestry Cricket Club promotion hopes left in tatters

Oswestry’s 96-run defeat to Wolverhampton ended their chances of promotion from Birmingham League Premier Two.

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Wolverhampton won the toss and chose to bat first at Oswestry with a strange-looking batting line-up which saw regular opening batsman Aneesh Kapil batting at No.10.

When he came to the wicket at 93-8, only Archie O’Hara (45) had shown any resistance, but an unbeaten 24 from Kapil, 31 from Ravi Kumar and 23 from last man Joe Stanley improved the score to 164 all out in 45.4 overs.

The early damage had been caused by Lahiru Samarakoon (4-46) and the middle-order was taken out by Ben Roberts (3-22), but Wolverhampton’s early batting woes were eclipsed by a dismal effort from Oswestry, who crashed to 68 all out.

Worcestershire seamer Adam Finch took 4-9 and skipper Matthew Kleinveldt snapped up 3-13 for Wolverhampton.

Bridgnorth’s fine season continued with a five-wicket success at Brockhampton.

The hosts posted 173 all out thanks to Dominic Badger’s top score of 72, with Sam Whitney (4-34) and David Exall (3-30) doing the damage to the Herefordshire side’s batting line-up. In reply, Bridgnorth didn’t have it all their own way and they had slipped to 125-5 before Adam Quiney fired nine boundaries in an unbeaten 44 from 32 balls to speed Bridgnorth to a five-wicket success.

In Premier One, Shrewsbury made sure they will finish as runners-up to Berkswell after a thumping nine-wicket win at West Bromwich Dartmouth.

The hosts batted first – and were blown away by Shrewsbury, who only needed two bowlers as they only mustered 67 all out in 19.4 overs.

Mike Barnard led the way with the impressive figures of 6-37 from his 9.4 overs, while Warwickshire CCC’s George Panayi took 4-30 from 10 overs. And they made light work of the run-chase, with skipper Will Parton hitting 61 from 23 balls, including five sixes and six fours as they raced to 68-1 from just just 38 deliveries. Sam Ellis was the one batsman out on an otherwise perfect afternoon from the London Road club.