Lancashire League: Super Botha both wins and loses (2 August 1999)

2 August 1999

Lancashire League: Super Botha both wins and loses

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph

If cricket professionals' pay was directly related to performance then it is fair to say that the financial controllers at Ramsbottom and Burnley would be quids in.

Matthew Pascoe and Anthony Botha have hardly set the Lancashire League alight this summer, both finding wickets and, particularly runs, hard to come by.

Botha won the head to head yesterday but still finished a loser. Not that heroic individual efforts always guarantee team success - just ask Simon Read.

Read, absent yesterday due to holiday, recorded Ramsbottom's best amateur bowling return since the World War II (9-41), the previous weekend at East Lancs but still ended up on the defeated side.

But back to Botha. He had opened up the campaign with a half century against Haslingden at Turf Moor on the very first day back in April but went into this clash at Acre Bottom without another such score to his name and averaging a meagre 18.

Those who watch Burnley week in week out are of the opinion that the young South African left hander has often been his own worst enemy, getting out through his own mistakes and impatience rather than falling victim to flashes of brilliance from the opposition.

We are talking crease occupancy here, run gathering, application.

All the attributes, in fact, that made up his innings against Ramsbottom, earning him that elusive and deserved half century.

He opened the innings and stayed around grafting for more than 100 balls, painstaking effort with just three boundaries to show.

Eventually the 23-year-old holed in the deep, caught by his opposite number Pascoe off the impressive Garfield Moreton for a defiant 65 with ten overs to go and the visitors starting to slip behing the clock. Ironically this was an innings in which he could have done with being a little more cavalier. In this game you just can't win, can you?

The departure of Botha ended any realistic chance of Burnley reaching the required 177 and they eventually were all out off a final ball 23 runs short to give Ramsbottom a first win since late June.

Ian Bell with 42 and Mark Dentith with 25 off 26 balls helped Rammy to a sound total despite the efforts of Botha (3-84) and amateur Kamran Farooq (4-22). Burnley went into their reply encouraged in the knowledge that not only were Ramsbottom missing Read but they also had two other bowlers, Nick Riley and Michael Haslam out injured. When Lee Daggett pulled up after just one over, it looked as though the home side were going to struggle to find support for Pascoe.

In the end though Moreton and Mark Price proved more than capable of taking care of the visiting batsmen, the duo collecting seven scalps and only a last wicket stand of 34 gave the Burnley score respectability.

Burnley looked in with a shout when 91-3 and Pascoe going well, then six wickets fell for the addition of just 29 runs and it was game set and match to the hosts.

Source :: Lancashire Evening Telegraph (https://www.reednews.co.uk/let/)