(In the words of Lee Brown)
Hyde's 4th team visited Ashton On Mersey yesterday and were ruthlessly put to the sword by the Mersey 3rd team. The game had been in doubt due to overnight rain but a sunny morning helped to dry the square, although the original wicket we should've played on was still too wet. I lost the toss and their skipper invited us to bat as I knew he would as the wicket looked very bowler friendly.

Young Rian Meisura opened with me and we soon knew we were in for a testing afternoon as left arm quickie Palmer generated bounce and pace, allied to quite a bit of lateral movement. Chema was almost as testing at the other end and runs were hard to come by. We managed to move the score on to 22 when I went for a big square drive but the ball was just too wide and I only succeeded in edging behind for 8. Thomas left his leg stump exposed as he moved too far across and Palmer castled him first ball. Mike Knowles joined Rian and with dogged determination the pair added 21 before Rian swatted a short ball from change bowler off spinner Bamajee to mid wicket for a hard fought 15. The spinner was getting some alarming bounce and turn allied to great accuracy so runs were hard to get. Mike and James Hartley battled away until Mike swatted a full toss to mid wicket and departed for 14. Ironically Bamajee claimed his two wickets with the two worst balls he bowled. The rest of the batting had to have a real go at scoring runs as the overs were running out and James, after looking as if he could go on to a decent score was run out for 13. Harry Douse also sacrificed himself run out for 8. Connor, Kathryn, Rio and Paul all found the going tough as Mersey's bowlers hardly bowled a bad ball and George was left not out when looking set for some runs.

Mersey were chasing 82 but the way openers Brazendale and McKenna set off you'd have thought they were chasing 282. They were helped by some wayward bowling but the pair, with quite a bit of slogging mixed in with the odd decent shot, seemed intent on finishing the game in record time. A few misfields and a couple of dropped catches didn't help and only James Hartley's off spin seemed to trouble the pair although Paul Rothwell was treated with a certain amount of respect when he came on to bowl. Brazendale finished with 39 not out and McKenna 42 not out as Mersey ran out winners by ten wickets.

Lee Brown Hyde 4th team Captain.