Wallasey’s Seb Botes on his ‘surreal’ spell and coming back to the Comp

Seb Botes was on cloud nine on Saturday when he took the best bowling figures in top-level club cricket so far this season.

The Wallasey all-rounder claimed 9/41 against Rainhill last Saturday – his personal best, his first five-for in more than four years and the 10th best figures in the top flight since 2010.

Among seamers, his figures were the seventh-best; of the six above, three were by overseas pros and two by domestic first-class players.   

So in the three-division era of the Comp, only Ormskirk’s Sam Marsh – whose 9/18 against Formby last year was the best return in the whole country – has done better as an amateur bowler.

Best Bowling Figures

Liverpool Competition Premier Division, since 2010

Figures	Player	Match	Date
10/85	Srikant Mundhe	Colwyn Bay v Birkenhead Park	27 Aug 2016
9/9	Sumit Ruikar	Wallasey v New Brighton	29 Aug 2022
9/18	Christopher Liptrot	Firwood Bootle v Wallasey	19 May 2018
9/18	Sam Marsh	Ormskirk v Formby	6 July 2024
9/22	Keith Barker	Firwood Bootle v New Brighton	20 Jul 2019
9/35	Jonathan Wells	Leigh v Colwyn Bay	25 Aug 2012
9/37	Matthew McKiernan	Leigh @ Hightown	15 Sep 2012
9/38	Chris Firth	Southport & Birkdale @ New Brighton	21 May 2022
9/39	Saliya Saman Jeewantha	Colwyn Bay @ Wallasey	29 Jun 2019
9/41	Seb Botes	Wallasey v Rainhill	21 Jun 2025

Understandably, Botes was chuffed.

“It was a bit of a surreal experience,” he said.

“It’s not the sort of thing you expect when you rock up on a Saturday, so it’s quite nice.

“I took three in my second over and after that I thought it might be my day, so it was just a matter of carrying on and hoping for the best.

“It’s one of those things that you hope happens every week but it’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing… you never know, we’ll see what happens.”

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Botes, 21, first played in the Comp for New Brighton in 2015 – aged 11, he made 39 and took 3/8 for the 3rd XI against Wavertree on debut.

He became a Rake Lane regular alongside his older brother Louis – just like their father, also Louis, had done from 2005 to 2018.

So it was a wrench for both Botes brothers to leave the club last year for Moorside in the Greater Manchester Cricket League.

Botes the younger reckons the break did his game the world of good, and says it was always in his plans to come back to the Comp.

He said: “I think taking the year out might have helped a little bit with trying to be more attacking early on.

“Long-term it was probably always the plan to come back.

“It’s the best standard of cricket in the area and you always want to play at the highest level and challenge yourself.

“You’re playing against pros or a couple of pros every week, so it’s a good challenge for everyone really.”

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He admits it was a challenge to sign for his old club’s fiercest rivals, but credited everyone at Wallasey with helping him settle in.

It’s been a middling start for Wallasey in the league, currently seventh with three wins and five defeats, but they are through to the quarter-finals of the Cheshire Cup after Botes’ 3/27 helped set up a six-wicket win over Bowdon last Sunday.

“With the ball, I feel better than I ever have,” he said.

“We’ve had some pretty bad losses but our wins have been very good. 

“When we get a full performance together, we’re a good team and we’ve shown that.”

from Merseyside Cricket Online https://ift.tt/sTeWp42