SAUL'S DELIGHT AS HIMLEY MAKE IT FIVE FROM FIVE

Himley recorded their fifth victory in as many games to keep up their sensational run of form in the Birmingham League. Overseas player Saul Anstey stared with the ball taking 4-57 from his 17 overs to continue his impressive run since arriving from Cape Town. It helped his team to restrict the visitors to 208-9 from their 55 overs. Himley eventually knocked off the total 6 wickets down after Wolverhampton had made them work extremely hard for the 24 points.   

Wolverhampton arrived at Stourbridge Road on the back of two impressive victories and they won the toss and decided to bat first. Saul Anstey and Jamie Turner were magnificent again. They bowled with exceptional discipline for the third game running and reduced Wolves to 28-3.   

During the first 15 overs they barely bowled a bad ball and eventually they got their rewards.   

Wolverhampton regrouped and a Partnership of 100 between Will Neild (55) and Charlie Home (65) helped settle the visitors. The breakthrough was eventually made by the returning Anstey who took a fantastic one-handed catch off his own bowling. From this point onwards the home side regained the momentum and bowled with excellent control to restrict Wolverhampton to 208-9.   

The response started in excellent fashion, Bilal Hussain (61) played a number of lovely cover drives to help get the reply off to a positive start. The score was 91 when the first wicket fell. Hussain caught on the boundary at deep midwicket. For the majority of the chase it looked a formality that Himley would win. However they lost Ollie Westbury (42) and Callum Lea (45) in quick succession and Wolverhampton then applied great pressure to take the game deep. The lower middle order grafted hard to chip away at the remaining runs and Saul Anstey marked off an impressive day by hitting the winnings runs with a fine six.   

The club enjoyed success elsewhere on the weekend with 4 out of 5 teams winning. There were some notable individual highlights, including a magnificent maiden second XI hundred for Tom Wall. In the threes Dom Taylor made 78 from 85 balls in a winning team against Barnt green. All in all another successful weekend for the club.   

The first team are next in action at Pelsall next Saturday 12 Noon start.    

​Cricket fan