Lancashire U17S Cricket League

Enfield (109/5) beat Colne (103/7)

COLNE came close to upsetting the odds in the Lancashire League when they pushed high-flying Enfield all the way in a thrilling reduced overs match.

The match was down to 18 overs due to poor light but that only condensed the excitement as Colne narrowly missed out on claiming their third win of the season.

And this from a side who all but one were still young enough to play for the club's under 15s side.

And it was one such youngster, 14-year-old Sohaib Siddique, who led the charge that saw Colne fall six runs short of the Enfield total.

In fact, with four overs to go and just three wickets down, Colne were on course for a famous victory against an Enfield side flying high in fourth place.

Siddique opened the batting for Colne who were given the tough task of catching Enfield's 109 total. That task was made even harder when quick bowler Robert Green cleaned bowled John Haig with the third ball of the innings.

Green was not as clinical as he had been in a previous Sport Extra game playing for Lancashire League against Ribblesdale League.

But while his bowling was erratic, giving away far too many wides and leg byes, he still weighed in with three crucial wickets. Matt Walker joined Siddique at the crease and the two soon settled into a very profitable partnership which saw them run up 59 runs together.

That was cruelly ended thanks to a well taken catch from Matthew Holden off the bowling of Chris Lord to dismiss Walker for 18.

Siddique continued to strike the ball well and with a bit more strength would have found a lot more boundaries than the four he actually did make.

David Spokes made a fleeting appearance and made eight runs before being bowled by Lord.

However it was to Colne's credit that they were still in with a shout with a handful of overs remaining. But their downfall was that, apart from Siddique, no one was capable of getting runs on the board.

With the momentum now gone, Colne needed nine runs off the last over. But Green struck with vengeance and Siddique and Trushar Patel were run out in successive balls then Mitesh Patel was caught by Chris Leeming.

Batting first, Enfield also suffered the loss of an early wicket when Green was bowled by Platt for just two.

But as Siddique had done for Colne, Adam Bracewell did for Enfield and held the innings together with a magnificent 59.

Bracewell hit boundary after boundary with the 13th over the highlight of a hard hitting innings when he hit one mighty six and two fours off the bowling off Patel.

By the time he was bowled by Zaheer Mazher the foundation for the inning had been set.

In fact, that wicket signalled the start of a fine second spell from Mazher who claimed two more wickets in his next over, dismissing Simon O'Loughlin and William Threlfall for ducks.