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Hale Barns 97, Sale 101-3 (Sale won by 7 wickets)

9/ 5/2008

SALE recorded their first win of the season on Saturday when they comfortably defeated Hale Barns by 7 wickets.

The maximum 25 points won from the game moved Sale into 3rd position in the league, just 5 points behind leaders Tattenhall.

Visitors Barns won the toss and elected to bat first but were soon in trouble against the opening bowling pair of brothers Mike and Rick Halkon.

Mike took a good overhead catch off his own bowling, Rick got a ball through the gate when Cooper played back and then Mike appealed successfully for a lbw.

A change of bowling brought immediate further success when J-P Lee knocked back Wolstenholme’s off stump so that after an hour Barns were reeling at 25 for 4.

Aussie Connolly made every effort to restore his side’s fortunes but he was hampered by a foot injury and was restricted to singles with the odd boundary.

He lost three middle-order partners in quick succession to take the score to 43 for 7 in the 29th over so it was left to the three tail-enders to help Connolly add useful runs in the later stages of the innings.

Fourteen year-old Joe Cooper defended stoutly for 16 overs before Rick Halkon took a fine caught and bowled and John Taylor then wrapped up the innings with two wickets before the close at 97 in the 53rd over.

Connolly finished with a valiant but painful 40 before being last out. For Sale it was the overseas players that emerged with most success, Lee and Taylor each grabbing three wickets.

Sale made comparatively light and quick work of their reply. Dan Halkon and J-P Lee added 50 in 10 overs in fluent fashion but Halkon on 23 was adjudged lbw in Molloy’s first over.

Lee continued the momentum until he too was lbw to Molloy for a sparkling 36.

Ian Dixon and Taylor moved the score to within one run of victory after 20 overs but Taylor was then clean bowled by the youngster Cooper to give him a wicket to remember (and one for Taylor to forget!).

Dixon (22 not out) drove the winning boundary with 26 overs to spare and saw Sale comfortably home.

Sale’s 2nd XI maintained their 100 per cent winning start to the season with a good win against Hale Barns 2nd XI.