Jawad Akhtar holds his nerve as Wakefield Thornes bounce back with exciting win in Viking Cup tie

A disappointing Saturday saw all three of Wakefield Thornes’ teams lose, but the smiles were back a day later with a terrific win for the first XI over Yorkshire Premier North leaders Driffield Town in a thrilling second round Viking Cup tie.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

In the first of their weekend’s games in the Yorkshire Southern Premier League Thornes found themselves batting first on a wicket that had seen some rain early in the week after being put in and produced an overall below bar performance.

Elsecar bowled them out for 177 in an innings that swung one way then the other.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

After being reduced to 65-5 they recovered as a 93-run sixth wicket stand between Jawad Akhtar (31) and debutant Orminder Singh (54 off 60 balls) looked to be leading them to a good score. But a further late clatter of wickets saw just 17 more added after Akhtar was out.

Wakefield Thornes had mixed results in their league and cup matches.Wakefield Thornes had mixed results in their league and cup matches.
Wakefield Thornes had mixed results in their league and cup matches.

Thornes had some early joy in Elsecar’s reply as Matty Taylor and Singh took two wickets each. The former went on to finish with 3-32, but the experienced Elsecar middle order saw them home with four wickets and 10.3 overs to spare.

It looked promising for Thornes’ seconds when they dismissed opponents Sheffield Collegiate thirds for 123 in their Division One match.

Adam Naz led the attack with 3-25 while James Donnachie and George Harrison claimed two victims each.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But another below par batting performance saw the Wakefield team fall to a season lowest 87 all out. Only four players made it to double figures with Adrian Thomson (18) top scoring.

The Saturday horror show continued with the thirds only able to muster 130 runs against Askern Welfare seconds in their Pontefract Division Five game.

Only a late 33 from Ali Masood Ayaz and 29 by Saqlain Shahzad allowed them to reach as many as they did, but it still proved insufficient as Askern reached their target with four wickets to spare despite 3-34 from Shahzad and 2-13 for young bowler Hasan Khan.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A much more vibrant Sunday performance saw Thornes edge a real thriller as they edged out Driffield Town by two runs in their Viking Cup tie.

Once again they were asked to bat first, but the response was good as James Wolfenden and Kieran Donnachie put on 60 for the first wicket before the former was out for 34.

Donnachie went on to make 69, before Singh smashed 42 from 23 balls to help the total up to 220- 9 from 40 overs.

In-form Driffield raced to 116-1 in the first 20 overs of their reply, but the game turned back in Wakefield’s favour when Akhtar and Josh Hen-Boisen came on to bowl.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Brad Green (2-20) also helped put a squeeze on with the result that Town needed 14 runs from the final over, to be bowled by Akhtar.

They got close, but ended on 218-8 with Hen-Boisen finishing with 3-37 and Akhtar 3-41.

The day was only marred by a bad hand injury to Matt Varley that will see him out of action for some time.