ANY hopes for a good weekend for Crewe CC were squashed with back to back defeats against Leek and Audley, together with a serious injury suffered by their exciting professional Ashish Kapoor.
Kapoor missed both matches due to a shoulder injury picked up while playing squash and looks likely to be out for the rest of the season. His outstanding performances in recent weeks will be sorely missed, scoring nearly 500 runs and taking 35 wickets already this season.
Crewe tried to focus on matters in hand and substitute pro Subbarto Banerjee came into the side to face visiting Leek.
But Crewe were skittled out for just 79 with only opener Simon Walton (29) able to cope with Leek's spin twins of Cartledge (5-27) and Dearden (4-22).
The visitors then romped home with openers Harris (40no) and Bailey (28no) taking their side to a crushing 10 wicket victory. Crewe took just 1 point from the encounter.
The following day Crewe travelled to Audley and looked like repeating their previous batting collapse, slumping to 31 for 4 before Derek Walker and Tony Waddington calmed nerves with a stand of 47.
Two quick wickets saw Crewe back in dire straits at 80 for 6 and in need of some cool heads. Up came Karl Stevenson who joined Walker to launch a great recovery with an excellent partnership of 111. Crewe declared on 200 for 9, a daunting target for Audley.
Undeterred, Audley's openers launched an astonishing assault on Crewe's attack as they blasted the ball all over the ground at a rate of 10 an over. Eventually openers O'Callaghan (81) and Price (76) were removed but no more wickets followed and Audley achieved a staggering 8 wicket victory off just 23.2 overs.
Bemused Banerjee had been thrashed for 83 runs off only 7.2 overs and he along with the rest of the Crewe side will have to pick themselves up before entertaining Moddershall this Saturday.
Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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