Double promotion for Anston teams

The club’s second and third teams both clinched promotion, finishing in the runner-up spots in Division Three and Division Six respectively.

Second team skipper Peter Norbury, who came to the club three years ago, was delighted with his side’s efforts in the 2011 campaign.

“It’s been a fantastic season,” he said.

“The last few years we’ve just been trying to get the second team as close as possible to the first team, that was our aim again this year and we had a great season.”

Norbury highlighted the batsmen as a major part of the success, as they finished second to Milton.

“Anthony Roddis had three hundreds, Richard Paul scored a lot of runs and so did Steve Maddock, he was a stand out performer with the bat and initially he’s a bowler.”

“All the batsmen did well, which is good because all our bowlers are old men like me.”

Looking ahead to next season, Norbury is hoping for an influx of young talent, especially with the ball in hand.

“We want to get some young bowlers through if we can,” he told the Guardian.

“The league we’re going into is quite difficult, there are some first teams in there, and are bowlers are good enough but we’re getting old.”

He was full of praise for the rest of the club’s teams, in a season that saw the firsts finish third in the Championship.

“That’s a great effort from the firsts, in a tough league.”

“And the third team got promoted on the last day.”

“The fourths were unfortunately relegated, there are a lot of kids in the team and they’ve actually done well.”

“With Anston winning the 20:20 competition as well, it’s been a great season for the club and I hope we can carry it on next season.”

CHAMPIONSHIP

Worksop 188 all out

Anston 139 all out

ANSTON hosted the league leaders on the last day of the season and faced a game dominated by the professional Chad Keegan.

Winning the toss Anston invited Worksop to bat on a wicket that looked like it could offer some assistance to the bowlers.

Worksop were immediately in trouble as Plant accounted for Taylor for 0.

Then a moment that may have changed the game as Keegan was dropped in single figures.

He went on to make 52 out of the first 65 runs scored before he was removed by Perera.

Ruczenczyn at the other end accounted for Mirza and Bentley and Worksop were wobbling a little.

However a great knock from Manikoth (51) and Ambrose (20) brought things back.

Anston then mopped up the remaining batsmen with Long taking 3 and Perera another 2, Worksop all out for 188.

Anston knew they would face a tough task against the Worksop attack, Keegan accounted for Pickering early doors, but good knocks from Long (31), Lyne (21) and Perera (25) set things up for Anston to knock the total off.

But it wasn’t to be as the middle order really couldn’t cope with the pace of Keegan and spin of Hancocks as both bowlers took four wickets each and Anston collapsed to 139 all out.

Anston disappointed on the day but celebrated during the evening what has been a great season for the club, showing what is truly capable within a community based club.

The first team finished in a club best third place in the Championship, also winning the Mallen trophy as well as getting through to the semi-final of the Tomlins trophy.