Egerton v Kearsley ONE of the oldest truisms for the sportsman is 'You win some, you lose some.' It's much the same for the spectator. Five weeks ago I opted to go to Greenmount and, luckily, saw the only game in Bolton that was played to a finish. On Saturday I chose Egerton and, sadly, saw the only game that wasn't!

The fact that the final hour or so of the match became more mind-numbingly boring as each minute passed was no-one's fault, merely a combination of circumstances that conspired to kill the game stone-dead, as occasionally happens in cricket.

The gradual collapse of Kearsley's early batting, the better part of an hour lost to rain, the loss of overs, and, finally, the deterioration of the light were the factors which, when put together, resulted in the kind of finish that spectators will go a long way to avoid!

Egerton, batting first, made a bright, confident start to their innings. The previous week I had watched as Darron Foy and David White had totally destroyed Little Lever. This week, although they got the odd delivery past the bat, they looked fairly innocuous by comparison as Mike O'Rourke and Nigel Partington dictated the early part of the game.

O'Rourke appeared particularly ominous as the pair moved comfortably to 62, at which point an inevitable double bowling change altered the course of the game.

Pete Morris struck first, having Partington caught by White, but crisis-time arrived when Gary Tonge, bowling against his former team-mates from the reservoir end, struck four times in double-quick time. O'Rourke, not playing a shot, was trapped lbw by one that nipped back on him, Barry played a shot to his third ball that he would probably prefer to forget, Keith Hornby went first ball, caught at slip, and Johnny Mills was caught behind for 1. When Morris nipped in again at the other end with the wicket of Clegg, 62 for 0 had become 87 for 6, and an early tea beckoned.

But Stuart Hornby settled in for a rather longer stay than had his dad, and with Johnny Sharples beginning to look the second best batsman in the side, Egerton's stock, and total, rose accordingly.

The pair added 37, after which Matthew Cuff helped Sharples to ensure a score of 150-plus. When Sharples was last out at 154, he had hit 31 from 44 balls, including six 4's, all of which were pure pedigree.

Tonge deserved his final figures of 5 for 31 from his 15 overs, having consistently put the ball in the right place and moved it around a bit. White's figures were improved by three late wickets, but Foy, after last week's 7 for 21, finished wicketless for only the second time this season. As he himself remarked during the interval, cricket really is the great leveller!

If O'Rourke's innings was the day's highlight, his manner of dismissal certainly was not. This season I'm losing count of the number of players I've seen getting themselves out without playing a shot. Why do they do it? Especially when they're past the half-century and, presumably, seeing it like a football. Kearsley began their reply like a team who really fancied the target, as well they might. But Ratledge was disastrously run out at 20, and when White and Thomson followed in quick succession, it was 25 for 3, and raining. Play was resumed just before seven o'clock, and, barring something fairly extraordinary with either bat or ball, the game was doomed to a 6-6 draw.

Stuart Hornby replaced Cuff at the Longworth Road end, and bowled Morris with his third ball. Barry bowled first Monks, and then Foy, after an untypically long stay for only seven runs.

At this point, 52 for 6, with the light far from ideal, Egerton had their chance. Barry, who finished with 4 for 25, had bowled beautifully at great pace, and had been largely instrumental in smothering Kearsley's victory hopes, but now Woods and Partington hung on against Nedd and Hornby, showing occasional hints of aggression as the game slowly began to die.

Neither bowler could force any kind of breakthrough, and when Dudley correctly opted for Barry's return, the umpires ruled, equally correctly, that the light was too poor for them to be able to guarantee the batsmen's safety, and at 91 for 6, with Woods' unbeaten 34 the innings' top score, the game ground to a stalemate with seven overs remaining unbowled.

A pity, but, given the vagaries of the day's weather, inevitable.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.