1st XI away at Tewkesbury

After winning the toss and choosing to bat we soon found ourselves three wickets down for just 44 runs. Another good knock from number three Sol Dark (85) ably supported by Will Storey (24) and Curtis Oldroyd (28) helped us recover to 168-4 in the 37th over.

At that point a score of around 250 looked to be on the cards but despite our deep batting line up Tewkesbury kept taking wickets after Solly had gone and we ended up being all out for 199 with 5 overs to spare.

Having missed the match last week, James Nicol returned to take the new ball alongside captain Dave Means and it was Means who struck early with Tewkesbury 7-1. A series of dropped chances then followed. Had the chances been taken it could have been an altogether different affair but by the time of the second wicket, taken by Sam Fitzmaurice, Tewkesbury had managed to put on another 160 runs.

Hugh Leeke claimed our third wicket but but Tewkesbury made it home with 4.1 overs and 7 wickets remaining.

2nd XI home to Stone

Having lost the toss and been inserted, captain Dave Steinham set the tone for our innings in his first few balls, reaching 10 from the first 5 before offering a leading edge back to the bowler off a full toss! His loss was Jimmy Williams’ gain. Jimmy went on to score 146 alongside Steve Best who himself made 126.

126 in a 40 over game would normally be enough for man of the match. However, Best didn’t miss out on that award because of Williams’ 146. Instead our sponsor, with his shrewd cricketing brain, awarded it to Steinham stating that, ”Had he not got out so early we would never have made it to 354-3 in our 40 overs”.

Srini Kamath (31*) and Neil Meredith (23*) completed our innings.

Wickets were hard to come by for either team but Stone never really mounted a challenge, finishing their 40 overs on 207-5 with Ed Burrows picking up 2-43.