Rasen book their place in trophy final

On a damp outfield after the heavy rainfall on Saturday, the home side elected to bat first and got off to a terrible start.

The two Hartsholme opening bowlers bowled brilliantly as they managed to remove both of Rasen’s openers in the first five overs with the score on 16.

The away side continued to dominate, despite a brief cameo of 22 from skipper Dale Christie which included three sixes Rasen were struggling on 74-6 at the halfway stage of their innings.

Post drinks, Rob Chamberlain (25) and Gary Bierlein (20) dug in for the home side and managed to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

The pair put together a 30 run partnership and got Rasen to 100.

In the end the Hartsholme bowlers managed to clean up the tail as Rasen were bowled out for 116.

Defending such a low total Rasen knew they had to bowl and field well, and they got off to a great start thanks to both Ryan Penniston and James Fussey, the pair shared the new bowl and had Hartsholme in real trouble after 12 overs with the score on 40-4.

The crucial wicket then fell two overs later when Hartsholme opener Tim Shooter was brilliantly caught by Graeme Bell in the deep off the bowling of Penniston.

With the score on 41-5 Christie introduced the spin pair of Bierlein and Boryszczuk to rip through the rest of the visitors batting line-up as Hartsholme were bowled out for 61.

Gary Bierlein finished with figures of 2-15 off 9 overs and Tom Boryszczuk had figures of 3-5 off 6.4 overs.

The result was a great achievement by the team especially as results haven’t been going the team’s way of late in the league.

The final of the George Marshall Trophy is on Sunday, August 21 and will be held at Cleethorpes CC (1.30pm).

Next weekend the firsts return to league action away to Holton le Clay (1pm).

Sunday XI

After two weekends off, Market Rasen’s Sunday XI made the journey to Woodhall Spa, with the ground having fully recovered from rain to provide what would turn out to be a paradise for the batsman, and a track to ruin bowling figures.

With the home side winning the toss and electing to bat, Rasen opened the bowling wth the youthful pairing of Nic Keast and Megan Quinlan.

Rasen were able to start the game on top with an early wicket for each, including a first slip catch of the season for Rasen skipper James Snell.

From here on the home batsman were able to take advantage of the excellent batting conditions and found runs easy to come by, opener Thomas Dixon scoring an excellent 101 before being dismissed by Connor Janney, and a quick fire 52 from Jack Cooke allowing Woodhall to finish on 270-7 from their allowed 40 overs.

The standout bowling performance coming from Megan Quinlan, finishing with 3-44, with Snell and James Quinlan also picking up a wicket apiece alongside some solid fielding and excellent catching.

Heading out in an attempt to chase down what appeared to be a formidable total, Nic Keast and Mark Bedford set to meet the scoring rate early, Bedford particularly aggressive when taking the chances offered to him by some hit and miss home fielding with a quickfire 25, with Rasen skipper Snell then failing to trouble the scorers at 3 and Megan Quinlan falling for 6.

Young Jacob Bennett joined Keast at the crease.

From here Keast looked to press on with the rate and when Bennett was dismissed for 17 the partnership stood at 95.

Keast was then able to move on to his second century, finally falling for 116 from only 82 deliveries hitting 15 4s and 2 considerable 6s.

Wickets continued to fall and despite some lower order resistance from Janney and veteran wicket keeper Shaun French, Rasen were dismissed 201 in 38.4 overs, their highest total of 2016 so far.