Staffordshire cricket round-up: Whittington win as most games abandoned

Skipper Salim Khan is confident Walsall YPF will soon find their feet in the Staffordshire Club Cricket Championship Premier.

The division's new boys braved the adverse weather conditions on Saturday, which caused the majority of games in the league to be abandoned, but were on the losing end at Whittington.

Walsall YPF won the toss, elected to field and the hosts, who had Dan Wilks smash 126 off just 85 balls, declared on 253-3, despite having the heavy showers disrupt their innings.

The visitors looked set to get the victory, at one point they were 192-4 but collapsed to 214 all out, with Suman Shrestha taking the last wicket with the first ball of the final over to seal a 24-point win for the home side.

Walsall YPF are bottom after three games – two losses, one abandoned – but Khan remains optimistic ahead of the clash with Swindon this Saturday.

"Whittington did their best to get it playable," he said. "We thought 'let's go and make a game of it' and at one stage it looked like we could have won but it wasn't to be. We are just fortunate it was played.

"We lost wickets, we could've gone for the losing draw but we don't believe in doing that.

"A couple of our guys did very well with the batting, Mohammed (Akib, who got 73) and Naweid (Younis, who hit 51).

"Each game is tough in this league, with the first game the difference was Cannock's overseas player (Brian Barnard) and against Whittington, eight out of 10 times we probably would have won.

"Very shortly, I believe we will be taking more points and getting wins.

"It takes a while to acclimatise to a new division, we have quickly found out the difference between Division One and the Premier and sometimes it is just one player. We will be fine."

None of the other games in the division went the distance due to the heavy rain.

Although they did not have the chance to bat, Penn went away from Wednesbury with four bowling points, on top of the standard five points for the game being abandoned.

The hosts were 113-9 from 46.1 overs before play was brought to a close.

In Division One, Coseley won by nine wickets against Penn 3rd XI.

Shaun Costello took six wickets as Penn were dismissed for 100.

Stuart Jones hit 82 as Coseley successfully chased the total after just 13 overs.