9:11am Friday 31st August 2007
By Dennis Aris
KENDAL CC go in search of silverware when hosts to St Annes in the Thwaites Cup final at their Shap Road ground on Sunday (1pm start).
Kendal skipper John Trewenneck said: "We are at full strength and both sides are well matched.
"On the day the cup will go to who wants it most and we aim to come to the party in good style."....
AUSTRALIAN Gregg Mail may have been on a one-match mission as Netherfield's substitute professional but he looked like an old hand in the tense affairs that the derby matches with Kendal usually become.
Mail has already 40 wickets and 1,200 runs behind him for Colne in the Lancashire League and his unbeaten 98, along with Ben Haddrick's best-ever first-team knock of 54, put this year's champ- ionship back on the agenda for the Parkside Road club.
Netherfield's title hopes had taken a dent with Saturday's 48-run defeat at fellow challengers Morecambe - a result that saw St Annes replace the Parkside Road men at the top of the table. But Netherfield, who have a poor record in derby clashes in past seasons, put that disappointing display behind them.
Even so, the club dropped to third place, nine points adrift of the new leaders with three matches to go, and everything might come down to when sides meet on the last day of the season at Parkside Road.
Kendal won the toss and batted and rattled up 49 off the opening ten overs and the progress continued despite losing Ikram Ullah for 36 out of 58 on the board when trapped leg before by Mail's medium pace.
Kevin Howarth took up the scoring mantle even though Terry Hunte had joined him and it took the introduction of leg-spinner Marc Hadwin to produce another breakthrough, when he had Hunte also given leg before for a subdued 12.
Kendal's early onslaught offered hopes of a 250-plus target but Hadwin (4-50) slowed down their progress and it took another 15 overs to add 47 when Sedbergh School student Dean Bell was stumped for 17.
One run later, Tony Yasin was caught on the boundary for nought, leaving the home side 149-4 with ten overs left.
Howarth remained the bedrock of the innings and he had reached 90, with 10 fours, off 126 balls, when he departed, another victim for Mail (3-64) and the third of four lbw decisions in the innings.
Netherfield contained the run-scoring afterwards with no one able to get to 20 and the outcome was that Kendal fell short of early expectations at 198-8 on a placid wicket.
Kendal struck two early blows when Netherfield replied, having Craig Walmsley caught at point off Stuart Parkin and then Kiwi professional Graeme Aldridge bowled Chris Parry with the scoreboard showing 13-2.
Ryan Brown stepped out to join the professional Mail and they began to repair the damage by adding 67 in 18 overs.
Mail's infectious batting style confounded all attempts to dislodge him with a steady accumalation of runs by penetrating the field with some effortless ground-strokes.
Brown's dismissal, adjudged caught behind for 26, failed to disturb him, although Kendal came back by grabbing two wickets with the score on 94.
Chris Miller had Simon Little lbw for nine and Mark Daly was unluckily dismissed when run out at the non-striker's end when Ben Simm finger-tipped a straight drive from the professional on to the stumps.
It was still anybody's match but Haddrick survived some streaky early strokes to launch a strident assault on the bowling that included lifting a frustrated Aldridge for two sixes.
Both batsmen grew in authority in a match-winning sixth-wicket partnership of 105.
There was still time to engineer a century for Mail, but he settled for an impressive 98 off 96 balls, including eight fours and 40 singles .
Haddrick clipped the winning run and finished on 54 - his highest score for the first XI.
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