The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Spalding Town produced another impressive home showing as they beat high-flying Grantham by 59 runs in the Lincs ECB Premier Division on Saturday.
After winning the toss and choosing to bat, Town posted an impressive 249-9 from their 50 overs as Mitch Freeman top scored with 72 at Seas End Hall.
Impressively, the hosts then bowled Gratham out for 190 in reply with Brandon Andrews (4-30) the chief destroyer.
The 20-point haul leaves Chris Dring’s side in ninth place in the 12-team division and was their fourth win from ten games so far this season.
The foundation for Spalding’s big win was a stellar 141-run stand for the first wicket between Aussie ace Freeman and Jon Manton (65).
In what was Town’s best opening partnership of the season so far, Freeman continued his fine recent form with another half-century while Manton fired after returning to the top of the order.
All-rounder Freeman was eventually the first man out, stumped by Joe Kendall off the bowling of Dhruv Shahi (1-28) just 28 shy of a century.
Josh Lawrence (31) joined Manton at the crease, but the opener’s innings was soon ended by Zia-Ur-Rehman (1-32) as he trapped him LBW.
Far from faltering after losing their top two, Lawrence and Joe Broomfield (20) pushed the score on to 194 before the former was removed by Aqib Afzaal (1-22).
Spalding passed 200 with skipper Dring at the crease, before Broomfield was out caught from the bowling of Bilal Hussain (2-48).
From then on it was down to the captain, with wickets tumbling around him at regular intervals.
Dring, who was the last man out for 31 in the final over, saw Ethan Lawrence (0), Andrews (0), Jay White (1) and William Gardner (0) all come and go without making any kind of impact.
Three of those wickets went to Muhuammad Kaleem (3-40), including White and Gardner clean bowled.
Waqas Malik (8 not out) kept Dring company at the end, with Spalding setting Grantham a hefty 250 to win.
However, Town were in no mood to let Grantham make the same kind of start as they managed – and soon reduced their visitors to 26-4 after an early blitz.
Opener Kendall (4) was the first man out as Andrews had him caught behind in the first over.
Usman Minhas (12) soon followed with Andrews pinning him LBW, before Josh Lawrence (2-30) took two quick wickets to have Rehman (0) and Shahi (0) both caught behind by Lawrence.
Afzaal (57 from 32 balls) and Harry Green (19) then led the Grantham fightback as they took the score from 26-4 to 111 with an 85-run stand for the fifth wicket.
However, when Green was removed by Freeman the wickets began to tumble, with Kaleem (7), Zain Abbas (9) and Glenton Williams (1) all gone cheaply.
Afzaal and Hussain (59) then made a fine late stand, but Freeman (3-36) eventually got the opener to put the skids on their fightback.
Grantham’s hopes were then over when Andrews had Hussain caught behind in the 47th over to wrap up the victory.
Next up for Spalding is a tough-looking trip to Scunthorpe Town on Saturday (noon).
