Ashington CC 'hit a brick wall' with back to back defeats as season draws to a close

A losing draw against Castle Eden coupled with defeats against Sunderland and Chester le Street – the latter which saw the Wansbeck side drop a place in the table to third – have come at the wrong time of the campaign.

With five games of the season remaining, Burnmoor lead the North East Premier League’s Premier Division table by 48 points from second place Burnopfield.

On Saturday against Chester le Street – as the league reverted from the win, lose, draw format to 45 overs per side contests – after an opening partnership of 47 between Jack Jessop (39) and Cam Nichols (32), Ben Harmison top scored with 80 out of an Ashington total of 201-9.

Matty Cranston then scored an unbeaten 87 as the visitors won in a canter by seven wickets in the 37th over.

McCafferty said afterwards: “Our displays over the last two weeks have been flat as if we have hit a brick wall in the season.

“It’s back to back defeats for us and we have to really kick on because we need to finish the season with some positivity.”

He continued: “I lost the toss and we got put in to bat on a pitch which was a little bit soft to start with but it nevertheless still looked like a decent wicket.

“We got off to a good start through Cam Nichols and Jack Jessop until Cam was out when he was going quite well. I was caught straight away then Ben Harmison and Jack have had to consolidate a little bit.

“The pair batted for a while then we lost wickets at regular intervals and probably finished 30-40 runs below what was a par score.

“Ben batted really nicely to get us up to the score which we did and he had to bat more cautiously than he would have liked.”

He continued: “Our bowling today was probably as poor as it has been all season and I cannot remember a time where we really struggled to set fields early on. The Chester le Street lads batted well and fully deserved to win.”