Furness beat Workington in the Cumbria League’s match of the day which reached an exciting climax despite three interruptions through rain.
An unbroken sixth wicket stand between Ryan Griffiths (51no) and Gary Thompson (26no) carried the visitors home at the Valentine Ground.
The target had changed because of the stoppages and they were left needing 171 from 31 overs to earn the victory off the first ball of the final over.
Furness had to win after last week’s defeat to Cockermouth and keep the pressure on leaders and champions Carlisle.
John Walsh for Cumbria Crack gives a flavour of the game from the start in his conversations with the Workington scorer Gavin Scott and the League’s newest umpire Paul Telford.
You can listen here to them here, along with the view of the two captions ahead of the game…
Nathan Waterston called correctly and inserted the home side with Workington skipper Matty Lowden admitting he would also have bowled first.
Conditions were overcast with the threat of rain and the general forecast had actually been worse with the real possibility of a delay to the start.
Workington had reached 72-4 off 24 overs when the first rain break came and when they resumed the revision was that it became a 48-overs-a-side game, each side losing two overs.
During the second session John took the opportunity to have a word with former Workington opening bat Grant Reid who has switched to rugby league and during the winter turned pro with Workington Town.
The young prop forward explains about a shoulder/neck injury which kept him out for a while and now back in the squad looks forward to Sunday’s big game at leaders Dewsbury Rams.
You can listen to some more commentary and what Grant had to say about Town and the prospects of taking on the League leaders….
Workington had to accelerate after that initial break for rain and started to move it forward through Kiwi Davis Mills and Callum Sutton. Listen here….
The heaviest shower of the day sent them off again and the decision was made to take an early tea – but more overs were lost.
In the tea-interval John took the opportunity to have a chat with Dave Fallows, the Furness coach who is also coach to the Cumbria county side….
When play resumed it was Sutton who dominated proceedings. He lost Mills (31) and Sam Bates (0) both caught at slip off Thompson before launching a brutal attack which took him to a superb unbeaten 103 off 82 deliveries.
His second fifty came off only 21 balls and during the innings he hit six fours and three sixes.
The end product was Workington batted for 43 overs to reach 198-6, and after a fairly lengthy delay to work-out the Furness target the visitors went out needing to score 198 in 41 overs for victory.
They were 18-1 when the heaviest shower of the day sent them scurrying for the pavilion and it did look as though that would be it, and they wouldn’t get back on.
But they did, as the weather brightened and they were able to finish the game at 8-24pm.
Workington seemed to have achieved a stranglehold on the game when they had Furness 74-4 after 17 overs and pro Yash Debey (44), skipper Nathan Waterston (17) and Mark Daly (0) were all back in the pavilion along with the first to depart, Sam Dutton (0).
The big guns had gone, and when young Ghumman (17) was trapped leg before by Mills the visitors were 117-5 – needing 55 off seven overs.
Workington would have fancied their chances at that point but a match-winning stand between Griffiths and Thompson saw the visitors home to a priceless victory.
