WOOLVEN WORKS WONDERS FOR GRASSMOOR

GRASSMOOR WORKS 123 FOR 4 NOTTS AND ARNOLD AMATEUR 121 ALL OUT

BASSETLAW AND DISTRICT DIVISION 2 AT BARNES PARK

10 JULY 2021 --- 1PM

GRASSMOOR WORKS AND THEIR BARNES PARK HOME

A quick fire innings from Grassmoor opener Andy Woolven [43] set the 'works' up for a victory ably assisted by captain Adam Bedford [34*] who also contributed 4 for 23 with the ball.  The visitors were bowled out off the penultimate ball of their innings for 121 and after a steady but slow start just two other batsman, aside the openers, made double figures with Ravi Don [22] most likely to move the scoring along at a faster pace.

OPENING BOWLER FOR THE WORKS CRAIG DAWES

Grassmoor is situated three miles south of Chesterfield in this former mining and industrial area that has suffered from the loss of many of its key employment outlets.  A too large selection of former strong clubs have completely disappeared off the cricketing map and those that have have merged or languish in the lower leagues.  Grassmoor though continue with fortitude in The Bassetlaw and District League which will provide a debut blog for us.  The village was formerly sandwiched between the colliery with its coking plant and towards the west side the old Sunbrite carbonistaion plant all of course gone and although they have a nice park and country park the option of regeneration in these areas often comes alongside of lets build more 5 bedroom executive houses that do little for the local population and Grassmoor is no exception it has these across a few developing sites with more to come. 

FIRST CHANGE BOWLER DAVID SPENDLOVE

Barnes Park named after the former colliery owner sits aside the busy B6038 adjacent to the Boot and Shoe public house and Woodleigh Motors, soon to be a new Coop, this the site of the former cinema  beautifully named the Electric Theatre before switching to the more mundane Roxy.  In recent times the village has come to notice as the place where Paul Burrell, the butler to Princess Diana, grew up.

The ground is situated at the southern end of the park with a new very impressive new build pavilion, grey in colour it looks functional and the right sort of development for the village, this replaced the former wooden structure and I guess will be shared by the football clubs on a Sunday as the last facility was.  The only downside is the scoreboard is just that perched up outside and although the visitors were irregular updating it a kindly gentleman from Grassmoor kept us up to date during the home sides innings.  There was no live update but thankfully the scorecard was on the leagues website that night so all was good.

JOHN KENWARD NASH

With rain forecast an umbrella would accompany me and of course the obvious happened it remained fine all afternoon.  The two sides had met just a couple of weeks ago in a tight encounter but today didn't match this with Amateurs put into bat they made a steady start but the scoring was slow.  Jack Taylor [24] and Rayhan Don [15] looked comfortable but as they tried to push on they fell to David Spendlove and John Kenward-Nash.  It was left to Ravi Don to try to push the score along and with just Jins Jacob Saju [15] they were the only two, other than the openers, to hit double figures as the total meandered along to 121 all out off the next to last ball of the alotted 40 overs. 

RAVI DON PROVIDED A MOMENT MAINLY FOR THE UMPIRE AT SQUARE LEG

On the bowling front Adam Bedford returned 4 for 23, Kenward-Nash 3 for 20, David Spendlove 2 for 25 and John Donaldson chipping in with a wicket late on as Grassmoor kept a firm grip on the visitors innings. 

The interval here would not provide to much of insight just a wander around the executive housing as previously discussed and we were soon back in place for the home sides reply at just after 4pm.

RAVI DON IN STRIKING MODE NOW

It was a good job to be in place too because ninety minutes later it was all over Andy Woolven [43] started at a pace and after ten overs the reply was going at double the required rate, ably supported by Donaldson the pair set a base that would secure victory.  The tantalising bowling of Saju would be the undoing of both the openers with the former looking bamboozled as his stumps were disturbed.

JOHN DONALDSON GRASSMOOR OPENER

Captain Bedford [34*] came in and further promoted the cause for Grassmoor along side Spendlove who was mightily unlucky to be run out of a straight drive that touched the bowlers finger tips before breaking the stumps with the non striker just out of his ground.  Carl Bowling [9] would then support with Craig Dawes [1*] undefeated at the conclusion as the first ball of the second over from Awais Ghazanfar beat everybody and went sailing through for four byes.

ANDY WOOLVEN HITTING OUT

With just four wickets to fall not too much to report for the visitors bowling attack accept to mention Saju who was always interesting to watch and finished with 2 for 21 from dismissing both openers.

WOOLVEN GOING BIG AGAIN AS HE LAUNCHES ANOTHER DELIVERY

Interesting to watch some cricket very locally with a nice new facility which is really good for the club and must mean so much more than the old pavilion which had seen time out quite a while ago.  Its a fairly pretty park only spoilt by the constant hum and noise of traffic from the travelling two and four wheel vehicles.  Overall cricket wise a good win for Grassmoor who continue to sit just off the top two in the division.

CAPTAIN ADAM BEDFORD SEES GRASSMOOR OVER THE LINE