Hoylandswaine v Shepley - All-rounder Cricket Sykes Cup Semi Final
Venue: Haigh Lane, Hoylandswaine.
Date: Sun 15th July
Time: 1:00pm
The second semi-final of the 2018 Sykes Cup is an all Premiership match as Hoylandswaine welcome Shepley.
Hoylandswaine will need to shrug off disappointment in order to progress in the Sykes Cup this season after they suffered their first defeat in all competitions at Hanging Heaton in the Heavy Woollen Cup Semi-Final. But they go into this fixture in great form having already done the double over Shepley in the league, both victories won in convincing fashion.
Captain SP Singh has been fortunate to have the availability of Yorkshire’s Alex Lees for both matches against Shepley this season with a century in their home fixture against them on June 7th. With Lees so far not featuring in the T20 Blast tournament for Yorkshire Vikings, Hoylandswaine will be hopeful of his availability. Lees has piled on 830 runs in his in his ten innings’ with 5 fifties and 3 centuries so his quality at this level is evidently telling. Swaine also welcome back powerful overseas batsman Saeed Anwar following a thumb injury midway through the campaign causing him to miss a handful of matches. Anwar has featured in nine innings clocking in with 3 fifties and a century out of his 387 runs so far.
Shepley have a strong mix of experience and young talent at their disposal with Greg Wood enjoying his first season back as captain after long-term skipper Danny Glover stepped down to be his vice. Wood will view the ten over allocations by his strike bowlers Nasir Jamal, Archie Greaves and Glover as crucial if they are to overcome Swaine’s destructive batting power. Jamal has enjoyed another typically potent campaign - his fourth season with the Marsh Lane club - with over 50 wickets to his name so far this season. They also have solid spin and slower bowling options with Abbas Ahmed (30) and Nadim Hussain (33) so it certainly shapes up to be an intriguing contest. Batting-wise, Greg Wood (705 runs) and Dan Wood (743 runs) lead their averages and the success of these two will be key.
