Thorner Mexborough beat the heat at Green Hammerton

Green Hammerton Cricket Club hosted Thorner Mexborough CC in a Yorkshire Premier League North – Division Three Ebor match, watched by Mark Doherty.

Looking Back

Providing coverage of the various leagues around Yorkshire is a constant process of juggling requests to visit grounds with even coverage of the various leagues and cup competitions, and trying to get to see new teams and cricket grounds.

I think that Andrew, John, and myself are faced with an almost impossible task of trying to visit as many clubs as we can in a season, knowing that we barely scratch the surface due to the fact that there are over 750 clubs in the combined counties of the People’s Republic of Yorkshire, and that it is such a huge area to cover.

Throw into the mix…the weather…and trying to ensure that we get to games each week…and it can become a logistical nightmare. I’d hate to add up the mileage that we all travel each year – just to get to different grounds.

I love getting to new clubs, exploring and photographing them; wanting to create a record of my visit that, in years to come, will provide memories of a day spent enjoying cricket. For my part, I try to use the fixture list to help me cover new teams, or clubs that I haven’t had the good fortune of seeing play before…when they travel to grounds near to where I live.

Perhaps that is a bit lazy of me?

Saturday’s visit to Green Hammerton was a case of revisiting a ground that I haven’t been to in a long time, in fact, it’s a club that is situated diagonally across a couple of fields from where I used to live, and one that I used to pass by when dropping my son off at school in the village.

The village of Green Hammerton is halfway between Harrogate and York, with Whixley’s ground a short walk down the road (I visited that ground last season), and Kirk Hammerton on the other side of the A59 (you can read a recent article about Kirk Hammerton CC here on the website too).

Travelling back to the area on Saturday morning, I visited the petrol station on the A59 just outside of the village to pick up a couple of cold drinks. The weather forecast was suggesting that it was going to be one of the warmest days of the year so far, and I knew I needed to keep hydrated.

Old stomping ground

Driving in off the main road, the village seems quite different from when I lived nearby over a decade ago. A new road layout and newbuild houses made one end of the village almost unrecognisable, but then the more familiar sights came into view as I passed where the doctor’s practice is (or was…not sure if it is still there), the lane leading down to the primary school, and the road down to the cricket club.

Pulling into the car park of the village hall, it was immediately clear that there has been plenty of work done to improve the facilities. I parked under the trees in the corner of car park…hoping to stop the car becoming a mini oven over the course of the day.

Walking around the end of the impressive village hall, the cricket club’s ground came into view. On my left was a large custom-built scoreboard and on my right, a veranda in front of the hall with steps leading down the slight gradient onto the field of play.

An information board to one side of the hall shows the various elements that make up this impressive community facility…a playground for children, climbing frames, two football pitches, and (of course) the cricket ground.

I’d arrived around midday, about an hour before first ball, and there were already quite a few players there…setting up the boundary flags, stumps and running the roller over the run-ups. The heat was already a concern, with shade being a rare and precious commodity around the edge of the large playing surface.

For my part, I could see that there was already a heat-haze rising from the grass, which would make getting photos challenging…with the rippling of rising air causing a shimmering effect.

Introducing myself to the captains of both teams, I was greeted with smiles and made to feel most welcome. Speaking to the captain of Green Hammerton, Manav Shah, I found out a little about the team and the challenges they have faced over the past year.

The current players are mainly based in Leeds, travelling quite a distance to the village for their home games.

I think it’s a shame that there aren’t more village-based players, but I have the upmost respect for all players passionate about playing cricket who are willing to travel to play, and let’s be honest, if they didn’t, maybe quite a few village clubs all around the county would disappear overnight.

We discussed some of the difficulties of running the team – from the cost of playing at the ground…to the vandalism of the club’s sightscreens over winter that has left them without any this season.

Despite these challenges [and many more], the team was still there and warming up to take on the visitors…Thorner Mexborough. Green Hammerton’s opponents on Saturday are a team that are based to the northeast of Leeds, and with easy access to the A1, it wasn’t the most difficult of journeys to get to the village for the away game.

Game on!

Thorner Mexborough started the day in midtable, just above the home side. Both teams had played 12 games – the visitors had won eight and lost four, while their hosts had won four and lost eight.

Winning the toss, Thorner decided to bat first…but in this heat, I wasn’t sure how much of an advantage that would be. I got the impression that it was going to be a punishing day for both sets of players.

Charles Harford-Cross and Nazim Hussain opened for the visitors and immediately went about putting runs on the board.

The square being used for the game was positioned to one side of the oval, meaning that scoring boundaries was easier when hitting towards the pavilion and where the main road ran alongside the ground.

The other two boundaries seemed dauntingly far away, but having said that…both the openers for Thorner Mexborough seemed happy to send the ball towards them anyway!

It took the home team until the fourteenth over to get their first wicket – that of Nazim – Rakshit Panchal holding on to a well hit ball off the bowling of Vinay Powar, with Nazim having reached 20 off 34 deliveries.

Four overs later and Charles was to follow him back into the pavilion as Vinay was to strike again, bowling the opener for 34 from 54 balls faced. Thorner had reached 100 at this point and were looking a good batting team.

David Clark and Abdul Hamid then formed a partnership over the next 15 overs to propel the visitors towards 200…before the pair of them were dismissed in the same over; David having scored 51 from 56 deliveries, and Abdul 63 from 51.

A superb knock by both.

Kunal Parbal (11 from 16) and Anjum Sabir (48 from 30) were to see out the remaining overs, with Thorner Mexborough ending on 269 for four from their 40 overs. A really good score, and one that would be challenging for the home team to chase down.

A mobile cricket tea

The teams withdrew to inside the village hall for tea…taking a well-deserved break from the unrelenting hot sun. For my part, I headed back to the car as I had a couple of phone calls to make – trying to sort out my schedule for the following few days.

As I headed to the car, I was invited to join the teams for some tea…I thanked them for the offer, explaining that I had to make a few calls first. I know that may have seemed a little antisocial…and not something I normally do, but there were a few things I needed to arrange before the end of the day.

A few minutes into one of the calls, Manav appeared next to the open car door and handed me a plate of food. I was taken aback at his kindness of putting something together and bringing it out to me…and well…the food was absolutely wonderful!

It felt so very wrong to have had someone bring me a cricket tea on a plate to the car!

I ate the food while finishing the call, then got out and went and thanked him for it…still feeling incredibly guilty at having been brought it…but very glad that he had.

The Chase

Green Hammerton’s reply got off to a slightly faltering start with them losing their first two wickets in the third and fourth overs. Opener Muhamed Angillath Cheriya and his replacement Raj Rajput making the walk back to the pavilion with the home team on less than ten.

Aaqib Hussain and Vinay Powar steadied the ship for the next ten overs, scoring slowly, but vitally stemming the early loss of wickets. Unfortunately, having batted those ten, over the course of the next five overs the hosts were to lose four more wickets and were struggling to up the run rate.

With twenty overs gone, Green Hammerton had scored around 60 runs for the loss of six wickets.

A spate of boundaries by Mohammad Asif and Zabiullah Khan in the next four overs suddenly propelled the home team’s score towards their opponent’s position at the same point in their innings – giving renewed hope that they could chase down the total.

That revival was stalled in the 28th over as Mohammad was dismissed having reached 42 from 25.

As the remaining overs ticked down, the home team’s run rate fell behind where it needed to be and were compounding that by losing a wicket here and there…with the last dismissal coming just before the final overs were bowled, ending the reply.

Zabiullah Khan had been an anchor in the second half of the innings, eventually being bowled for 57 from just 40 deliveries.

In the end, Thorner Mexborough had won the game by 80 runs, and earning them ten points.

Heading Home

Aristotle said that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts…and that sums up the cricket experience for me.

Hopefully when you read the articles that I write, you get that it is more than just recounting the game details. I want to give a little insight about the lead up to a game, what my day may involve, a description of the ground and where it is, relaying any conversations that I may have…and yes, details of the game itself.

There are many things that I enjoy about going to grounds, covering teams, and most importantly…meeting people and listening to their stories. All those things add up to making a day out at cricket worthwhile, and certainly greater than the sum of its individual elements.

It’s sometimes the smallest of kind gestures that make the day…and on Saturday, it was someone who I had met for the first time, taking a moment to put a plate of food together for me while I tried to sort out details of various bookings on the phone, that really made my day.

The mutual respect the two teams had for each other was very clear from the off, and the game was played in the right spirit. Despite the result probably being decided early on in the reply, it was still an entertaining contest and one that I thoroughly enjoyed watching from first ball to the final handshake.

Simply put, this is cricket.

One final plea…support your local team. Don’t ignore them for ‘bigger’ professional clubs; a village cricket club will appreciate having visitors watching…and maybe you will enjoy the game enough to get involved. A word of warning…if you don’t support them now, they may not be there in the future.

📸 PHOTOS

Want to read more?

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 which includes days out at grounds around Yorkshire.