Ingrow Cricket Club: Hundreds and a hat-trick ball in the clouds

Ingrow Cricket Club was the venue for Mark Doherty where their 2nd XI hosted Haworth CC 2nd XI in this Craven and District League Division Four fixture.

The Journey

Another visit to a Craven and District League club was in the offing and as I looked at the fixtures taking place on Saturday, there seemed to be a few centred in and around Keighley that piqued my interest.

Ingrow seconds were at home to Haworth seconds, and although I have covered Haworth first team before, I hadn’t seen either of these teams play and I have never been to Ingrow Cricket Club.

A look on Apple Maps and I could see that the club was situated on the south-west(ish) side of Keighley and from the top-down view, appeared to be separated from the town by a small copse of trees. I must admit I was quite excited about the visit.

Saturday morning and I threw the cameras into the boot, put my hat on the back seat and drove for an hour towards my destination. The weather didn’t look promising to be honest, with a forecast threatening showers throughout the day, although as I pulled into Keighley, the sun was belting down.

Following Siri’s directions, I navigated a few side streets and unexpectedly came to the start of a climb up the hill. I hadn’t looked at the topographical map as part of my research, just one of those flat top-down views. My bad.

As I drove past a mixture of new and old houses, the modern road changed into a tree-lined cobbled road, the sort that photographer Bill Brandt made famous in his images of Halifax (A Snicket in Halifax, circa 1937).

My first reaction was ‘Am I going to be one of those interesting news items about a driver who followed satnav up a road not meant for cars?’.

I slowed slightly and cautiously continued on the rather steep incline under the trees, listening to the engine complain and the tires make sounds like they were driving over bubble wrap.

Near the top of the hill as the incline started to flatten out, the car’s voice called out ‘Take the next left, and your destination is on your left’. I did as I was bid, and I [much to my relief] could see a cricket ground in front of me. Parking up, I headed into the ground to get a first look.

Visiting Next Door to the Gods

Daedalus, the master craftsman, built his son Icarus a set of wings, made of wax and feathers, to allow him to soar into the air and escape imprisonment imposed on the pair by King Minos.

Despite being warned by his father, Icarus overjoyed by escaping the labyrinth and the new-found ability to fly, had flown too close to the sun and the wax had melted plummeting him to his death.

As I stood on the boundary rope looking back at Ingrow’s pavilion, I was struck how high up we were, with the clouds seemingly going around us rather than sailing above; maybe Icarus would have been overjoyed standing where I was with the view I had.

The pavilion stands raised above the playing surface, with steps leading down the side to enable people to make the journey more comfortably than negotiating the steep grass embankment. The club has a nice, new-looking electronic scoreboard next to the pavilion and the ground is surrounded on three sides by lots of trees.

The opposite side of the ground from the pavilion features a reasonably sturdy metal fence – needed to stop cricket balls disappearing down the hillside…without it, their next stop would probably be about 50 metres down towards the roofs of the houses below.

Grass from Yorkshire CCC

At the far end of the ground there were two curious gaps in the trees, obviously man-made, one of them opening into a reasonably large circular area.

Chatting with one of the players, I was told that it had originally been planned to be a junior pitch/training area, and that the grass had come from Yorkshire County Cricket Club…but a lack of junior numbers [in the past] and cost had meant that it hadn’t been used for long.

As I continued my boundary walk, I realised that my initial impressions about this ground taken from the map-view were completely wrong, and that it was actually an unexpected hidden gem.

Game on

Play-Cricket – you did it to me again!

I had arrived at just after 11am, having been led to believe the game was scheduled for a midday start. This had also happened to me when I went to Airedale Cricket Club a month or so ago. In the back of my mind, I had an inkling I was being hoodwinked…but just in case, I made sure I was there for the given time in the app.

Play, of course, got underway at 1:30pm.

Points mean places in Division Four

Looking at the Division Four table at the start of the day, Ingrow were sitting second in the league, tucked in just behind leaders Bowling Baptist CC 3XI, and Haworth were at the bottom of the league.

My usual caveat of we’re only four games into the season kicks-in here…a win at this early stage can move teams up a table quite a few places, and a loss can mean table-toppers suddenly find themselves drop two, three, or more places.

The home team won the toss and decided to have a bat, clearly aiming to put runs on the board and see what their visitors could do in reply.

Shortly after I had got to the ground…there was the briefest of showers that had me running back to the car for a coat, but soon the strong wind had blown the rainclouds around the hill and down the valley. As we got underway, there were the odd spots of rain, and as quickly as it started…it stopped and bright sunshine returned.

Ingrow’s innings got off to a slow start, with the visitor’s bowling impressing as they managed to get two maiden overs in the first five and restrict the home team to just 16 runs. By the fall of the first wicket in the eighth over, there had only been another five runs added.

Abid Hussain strode to the centre and things were about to change.

Abid Momentum

The new batsman started to stroke the ball around the ground, adding a single here and a four there. Opening batsman Tobias Hartley was also picking up a few runs…but more about him shortly.

By the time Abid was bowled in the 18th over, he’d scored an impressive 45 from just 31 balls and had helped kick-start Ingrow’s charge. A few balls later and Abid’s replacement had been bowled by Matt wooding for a duck; maybe the visitors were about to turn-over their hosts?

Andrew Waite was bowled by Harvey Brooksbank for 19 from 17 deliveries, Harry Bailey went with the very next ball, and Harvey was on a hattrick. Liam Gillard was having none of it…playing the most resolute defensive shot I have seen in quite a while to snuff out any threat of the ball going near his wickets or pads.

Harvey hat-trick ball and Hartley hundred

All this time Tobias Hartley had been quietly going about his business, batting intelligently as he picked up singles and hitting wayward balls for four. As the visitors worked their way down the middle-order, Tobias took responsibility to stay on strike and build the innings.

By the time the final wicket fell, Tobias had ended unbeaten on 111 from 114 balls, including 18 fours and two sixes. Ingrow had an impressive 219 from 40 overs, which appeared to be a good total to defend.

Heading into the pavilion, I was treated to a wonderful tea that featured pizza, fries, peppers, sweetcorn, cheese, tortilla chips, slices of meat, garlic bread and a myriad of slices of cake. I opted for a cold drink instead of a mug of tea and headed back out for the reply, happy that I was able to sit down and not having to play cricket!

Blockbuster Tea

A wonderful tea…thank you…and a potential contender for Cricket Yorkshire’s Cricket Tea of the Year? (🚨 Editor’s Note – someone has to enter Ingrow… hint-hint!)

Over the course of an innings, I like to make my way around the boundary to capture different aspects of the play and views. As I sat looking across the side of the hill, I could see a maelstrom of birds swirling around over a small number of trees in the distance.

This wasn’t seemingly one type of bird in a murmuration…but a mixture of large and small birds, reminding me of a few scenes in Hitchcock’s The Birds. I hoped they weren’t going to be heading in our direction anytime soon!

Haworth’s reply got off to a slow start, with Ingrow’s bowling definitely on top as they restricted the visitors to a low run rate; although it took until the 15th over for them to make the first breakthrough, bowling opener Danny Spencer for 20 runs having faced 44 deliveries.

A few overs later and Gurjeet Modi was dismissed and with the visitors scoring below six an over, they looked doomed to fall quite a bit short of the total needed. However, after the drinks break, things started to change.

Chris Smith and Ewan Farrar formed a partnership that started to see runs flow and making the home team feel uneasy. By the time Smith was out in the 32nd over, Haworth were looking like they could potentially overhaul the total and win the game, thanks to his 121 from 91 balls.

The question now was – were any of the tail able to guide the visitors over the finishing line?

As the overs disappeared, risks were taken and runs that were never on, ran…there were several appeals for runouts, one in particular…I’m not sure why it wasn’t given as the player appeared to be in midair with no bat grounded as the bails were sent tumbling.

Down to the last over at Ingrow

Ewan Farrar (21 from 37), Asim Khan (16 from 13), and Matthew Dempster (11 from six) almost guided Haworth over the line. But a mixture of wickets lost, and great bowling saw the visitors needing around 13 off the last over, and only managing to score five…to lose the game by just eight runs.

There was a huge sigh relief around the ground as the home team got over the finishing line, earning themselves 19 points. Haworth’s reward for putting up a real fight, were ten points…and given how hard they had pushed Ingrow in the end, I don’t think anyone would begrudge them that.

A Day Well Spent

I’d enjoyed my day at Ingrow watching some good, competitive cricket, thoroughly enjoying a cricket tea, and taking in the very atmospheric surroundings accompanied by a soundtrack of the steam trains huffing and puffing out of the nearby station on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

I have, in the past, talked about clubs being archetypally ‘English’…well, Ingrow is a real Yorkshire club, and one that I can wholeheartedly recommend you put on your list of clubs to visit…you won’t regret it, I promise you.

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.