Chappell Cup: Starfish among the shadows as Ilkley make semi-finals

Unfortunately, on Sunday, I wasn’t able to schedule in a women’s game due to having to head towards Burley in Wharfedale to pick my daughter up from a weekend’s Guide camp.

To be honest, I had pretty much resigned myself to not being able to get to any sort of game as the location and timings didn’t seem to line up. That is until my wife agreed to accompany me and help make the timings work.

Looking down the small list of games being played, I noticed that Ilkley were playing at home in the quarter-final of the Chappell Cup. Since this was only 20 minutes away from where my daughter needed picking up…the decision was made and cameras packed into the bag.

We arrived at the ground around 1pm with first ball scheduled for 2pm. Since this was a last-minute arrangement, I needed to chat with the teams to make sure they were okay for me to be there.

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I was met with a warm welcome, and having explained why I was there, I got some big smiles as they were more than happy for me to take a few photos of the game. I haven’t been to the club in about ten years, so it was good to go and explore around the ground and see what I could remember from my previous visits.

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Ilkley Cricket Club is situated by the side of the River Wharfe, and somewhat like Ripon Cricket Club, is nestled in around other sporting venues.

Denton Road separates the cricket club from Ilkley Rugby Club (which is to your right if you stand with your back to the Pavilion).

In front of you is Ilkley Pool and Lido…which you will see at various times of the year – either on one of the breakfast time news programmes or in the papers, as swimmers dip into the open-air pool at 3am in the morning at the summer equinox or brave the waters during the freezing winter solstice.

Okay, 3am may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is really, really early and you wouldn’t find me swimming outdoors at that time!

The other side of the Lido is Olicanian Cricket Club…another club I need to visit as it has been about the same length of time since I’ve been to it. To your left is a densely wooded hill, towering impressively over the club and a set of tennis courts that run alongside the ground.

Diagonally to your right in the distance, is the famous Cow and Calf situated high over the town, about 2km away…but a little more on that shortly.

The pavilion is quite impressive, with changing rooms, a bar, and a good veranda to sit and watch the game from. Behind it is a good-sized car park, and there are a few picnic benches dotted around the boundary as well.

All-in-all, a lovely little ground to act as the backdrop for the Airedale & Wharfedale Senior Cricket League Chappell Cup quarter-final game.

The visitors to Ilkley were Kirkstall Educational Cricket Club Thirds – and I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ve covered any of their teams in the league or cups before, which is actually quite surprising.

The home team won the toss and decided to bat first, taking advantage of the relatively good light and warm conditions.

I managed to chat to a few club members during the innings as I worked my way around the boundary rope and was informed that the third team is usually made up of mostly junior players – something they are very proud of [and rightly so].

Scoring initially was slow, but as the overs added up, runs started to flow and by the 40th, Ilkley had set Kirkstall an impressive 168 total to chase. In fact, it had been the closing ten overs that saw the home team accelerate their run rate, scoring up to 12 an over at one point.

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Thomas Dover (44 from 94), Will Patterson (25 from 40), and Thomas Rowell (26 from 20) impressed with the bat for Ilkley; Zakriyah Butt (3 wickets for 32) and Shivakumar Kolkar (3 wickets for 22) had impressed with the ball for Kirkstall.

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The wind had picked up a little, the clouds were forming a grey blanket over the ground, and it had turned a little cold by the time tea was being taken…although rain wasn’t forecast, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a few drops fall.

Sitting by the scoreboard to the left of the pavilion, I could see movement up at the top of the Cow and Calf…so swung the lens around to take a look. It seemed like an army of ants were lined up along the ridge of the rock and every minute or so, one would throw themselves off the edge of the Cow and fly down towards the Calf.

I was enjoying watching a few of the participants slide along a thin wire, ziplining down towards the carpark by the road, doing their best to impersonate a starfish!

Back to the cricket!

Ilkley were bowling well…actually, very well. By around the tenth over, they were constraining Kirkstall to a run rate of around three per over, when they needed to score something around double that. At this point, the visitors hadn’t lost a wicket, but that was about to change.

Alex Quaife trapped Mustapha Hussain leg before for 19 from 47 deliveries. There had been a loud appeal directed at the umpire, the shortest of waits for a decision (that seemed infinitely longer than it actually was), before he raised his finger to signal out. That was the first wicket down.

Next over, and a further two leg before wicket decisions went Ilkley’s way and the visitors found themselves 45 for three. There was a period of calm defensive batting over the next eight overs before Ilkley struck again.

Alex Quaife caught and bowled George Tipping for 12 from 33 deliveries and at that point, the total of 168 seemed a long way away, as Kirkstall Educational were 67 for four.

Over the next four overs, Kirkstall tried to up the run rate, scoring six runs one over followed by ten the next. But again, disaster as they lost their fifth wicket of the game, ending the 28th over on 99 for six.

Another four overs gone, and the visitors were scoring more runs, but at the same time they were losing more wickets, and the run rate was heading north of seven per over. In the 32nd over, they had one batsman bowled and another run out to leave them on the brink of defeat having scored 114 for nine.

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Three overs later and it was all over as Finn Newberry bowled Jitesh Kirankumar for 5 from nine deliveries; Ilkley Thirds had progressed to the semi-finals of the Chappell Cup having won by 44 runs.

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Ben Smith (35 from 55), Mustapha Hussain (19 from 47), and George Tipping (12 from 33) had impressed for Kirkstall with the bat; and Jesse Pattinson with four wickets for just 22 runs was the star with the ball for Ilkley.

It had been a really enjoyable, and competitive game of cricket, with the sun managing to appear towards the end of the game…casting long shadows across the playing surface and where it managed to slip between the tall trees…bathing the ground in a golden light.

I hope it isn’t another ten years before I head back there!

MATCH PHOTOS

Want to read more?

Thank you, Mark, for capturing the highlights of Ilkley CC v Kirkstall Educational CC in the Chappell Cup Quarter Final.

Here are all of Mark’s articles and photos on Cricket Yorkshire.

To see more of his photography, you can visit caughtlight.com or he’s @caughtlight on Twitter/X.

There’s also the Caught Light Photography Facebook page.

I also highly recommend his blog called Leica Moments that include days out at grounds around Yorkshire.