Ashington Cricket lose with 46 runs defeat to Sacriston

The last occasion the Mighty Acorns suffered a loss was on the opening day of the campaign at Seaham Park - but after being in the driving seat at Sacriston, the fall of key wickets sent them tumbling to defeat.

The setback was still raw in McCafferty’s mind - but he pulled no punches when he said: “Obviously speaking just after the game, it’s very difficult to analyse what really went wrong but we’ve definitely contributed to our own downfall today with both ball and bat and we’ve got to hope it is just a blip.”

After winning the toss and putting the hosts into bat, McCafferty was disappointed that his side failed to cash in after having Sacriston 21-3 then 88-7 at stages during their innings.

He added: “We probably let them (Sacriston) get 40-50 runs too many of what I thought they would post and after the opening spell where we had them four or five wickets down very early, for them to get that score was a poor effort on our behalf. Some of our change bowling wasn’t up to the mark today with too many bad balls and by us not really putting the lower order under any real pressure. The one very bright spark was Matt Salisbury whose opening spell was brilliant. He came back for a second burst very strongly – and ended up with 5-32 – and I think his figures reflect that.”

McCafferty continued: “With the bat we know that they (Sacriston) have got a skilful bowler opening the bowling attack in Durham’s Chris Rushworth but he probably didn’t have to work very hard for his wickets (3-17). Looking back at the way our lads got out today, I don’t think, there were any outstanding deliveries which took wickets with shot selection poor all the way down the order. We try and hammer home high standards across the board but I think we were well below those standards today and fair play to Sacriston who made us pay for it. We got what we deserved today and all we can do is to try to look and put things right next week.”