Academy win nail biting finish at Westfield

Goole Academy entertained Driffield on Sunday at Westfield in their first match of the season. Having finished second last year the team has high hopes of another successful year under new captain Matty Cooper. Goole won the toss and elected to bowl under grey skies, which should have helped the swing bowlers. After an early success with Goole’s left arm opener Steven Thornton finding the edge of Hyde to be caught behind by Simon Franks Goole struggled to make inroads. Driffields’ experienced batsmen Driskell & Nicholson took on Goole’s young attack and quickly took the score past 100 with some lusty blows before Matty Cooper brought himself on to bowl Driskell for 63. Cooper then repeated the trick two overs later to bowl Wright for 2 and Ryan Thomson took a good catch from the off spin of Tyler Thomas to remove Milner for 24. Nicholson continued to score freely but his innings was curtailed by debutant Eddie Hasdell who’s slow bowling brought about a false shot as he played onto his stumps to be bowled for 47. After this, Goole took control and 155-5 turned quickly into 173 all out as Hasdell bowled beautifully to take two wickets from stumpings by Franks and two by catches from Thornton. Thornton took the other wicket of the 5 to leave Driffiled all out for 173 and importantly 5 overs short of completing their innings, which Goole could use to chase down the score. Hasdell finshed the innings with figures of 5 wickets for 9 runs which has to be a record for a 13 year old on debut for the club.

The Goole innings started brightly with Franks and Hasdell opening up with a partnership of 32 inside 5 overs. Hasdell was bowled for 16 from 13 balls to cap off a great debut for the youngster. Declan Eastwood and Tyler Thomas could not get going and were dismissed early to leave Goole on 48-3 from 13 overs and with Franks having to retire on 31 due to the new rule on senior players and Tom McGrath and Ryan Thomson both going cheaply, Goole had a hill to climb at 91-5. Matty Cooper managed to steady the ship in a small partnership with Sam Patrick before Patrick was bowled for 6. James Steele hung around and supported Cooper to take the score to 117-7 before he fell to the same fate as Patrick which brought the ever improving Thornton to the crease with Cooper. They pushed the score to 151-8 when Thornton was bowled for 20, but with 8 overs to go Goole were confident that Cooper with last man Ralf Dendle & opener Franks to come back in could get themselves over the line. Goole did just that, but it wasn’t easy. The final over saw Goole needing 8 to win. Cooper hit a well-aimed shot to long on for 2 runs and then hit a 4 through square leg from the 3rd ball to leave Goole needing 3 from 3. Cooper hit a good shot to mid-wicket from the 5th ball of the over but in attempting a second run Dendle was run out with the scores level. Franks rejoined Cooper and it was Cooper who finished the match with a shot to deep mid-wicket to win the game by 1 wicket.

Goole Town CC would like to thank its’ sponsor, Hygieia Group Ltd for its support of Goole Town Cricket Club.