Continuing their good early season form Cardiff Northern swept aside GFC with a 23 run victory at Caedelyn Park, despite missing key players Steve Hood, Ben Horlock, and captain Charles Brain.
With the weather fine and sunny, acting captain Dave Manely was surprised but gladly accepted the invitation to bat as CFG won the toss. Despite losing Dan “Chinky” Gerrard playing on for 3, Northern made good progress as James Vaile (28) and Gaz Jones (23) put on a fine second wicket stand of 43. They hit boundaries as well as rotating the strike.
Northern then received a double blow when looking to expand on their good start Jones and Vaile fell in quick succession. Jones played round a straight one looking to guide the ball down to third man and then Vaile miss timed his stroke to mid-on.
A collapse was averted with the best innings of the match when Rhodri Morgan (27) played the perfect knock of steadying the ship while at the same time keeping the run rate ticking over healthily. Regular wickets fell as the other batsmen played round Morgan’s innings with noteworthy mentions of Barrie “Baz” Willacott’s strike rate of 200% and Dan Jones avoiding a duck with a quick fire 3.
Northern reached 106-9 off their eighteen over’s with Dan “Percolator” Perkins not out 0. The star bowler for GFC was P Russell with 5 over’s, 26 runs for 4 wickets. His inspired spell kept GFC just about in the game.
The fine bowling form of Perkins was on show again today with a blistering opening spell of 4 overs 2 wickets for 18 runs. His of length was particularly uncomfortable for the GFC openers and gave a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘make em smell da leather.’ He first dismissed Ford clean bowled for 1 and then Ash Chedzoy took a superb catch to get rid of Gill for 12.
Perkins was aided by Brett Clarke who rolled back the years with an outstanding spell of pace bowling filled with fire and brimstone taking 3 wickets off 5 overs for a miserly 21 runs.
Any hope GFC had that Northern contained a second rate attack were done for when the backup bowlers of Gas Jones and Chedzoy took to their task. Chedzoy’s pacey but unlucky spell of 3-0-15-0 was a great effort.
The star bowler of the innings was without doubt Jones. His combination of left hand pace and bounce proved too much for the GFC batmen who were by this stage desperately in need of some scoring strokes. Jones was unlucky to only get the one wicket of Willis, clean bowled for 3. Time and time again the GFC batsmen found it nigh on impossible to get Jones away, with many balls either passing the outside edge or rocketing into the body. Just as Morgan had steadied the Northern innings, Jones squeezed the life out of GFC with highly economic figure’s of 5 over’s 1 for 15. Jones combination of big hitting and fierce bowling was enough to earn him man of the match.
J Vaile Caught P Russell 28
D Gerrard Bowled B Ford 3
G Jones Bowled C Fowler 23
R Morgan Bowled S Gill 27
B Willacott Bowled P Russell 4
D Jones Bowled P Russell 3
A Gill Caught P Russell 0
A Chedzoy Caught B Ford 2
D Perkins Not Out 0
D Manley Bowled S Gill 0
B Clarke
Extras 12
Total 106-9
O M R W
B Ford 4 0 19 2
S Clode 4 0 35 0
C Bowler 5 0 21 1
P Russell 5 0 26 4
S Gill 1 0 2 2
S Gill Ct (Chedzoy) Perkins 12
B Ford Bowled Perkins 1
L Russell Ct (Chedzoy) Clarke 0
N Weight Bowled Clarke 5
P Clarke Bowled Clarke 21
T Willis Bowled Jones 4
P Connely Not Out 23
C Fowler Not Out 4
S Clode
G Davies
P Russell
Extras 13
Total 83-6
O M R W
D Perkins 5 0 26 2
B Clarke 5 0 21 3
A Chedzoy 3 0 15 0
G Jones 5 0 15 1
bat bowl catch runout stumping play TOTAL G Jones 28 40 10 78 B Clarke 45 10 55 J Vaile 43 10 53 R Morgan 41 10 51 A Chedzoy 2 9 10 10 31 D Perkins 0 20 10 30 B Willacott 4 10 14 D Gerrard 3 10 13 D Jones 3 10 13 A Gill -5 10 5 D Manley -5 10 5 R Lailvaux 10* 10
Man of Match – G Jones
