Heads or tails ?

Saturday saw the visit of second placed Brigstock 2nds to Foxfields on a hot, sunny day with the 3's coming off the back of two close defeats. On paper Horton fielded a strong side, with Zahid and Kiron coming in from the seconds and with the team a good balance of batsmen and bowlers. The pitch looked good but with the previous day's rain , Kev felt that it was likely to play like the previous week and only get easier to bat on as the pitch dried out further. With that in mind I made the decision to stick the opposition in to bat first thinking we'd keep the runs down and that we had enough batting to knock them off. The other wise move was to bring the boundary in a few metres as the lads complained it was too big last week!

The innings started badly for us with the Brigstock openers in the mood to start quickly so when they were 55 for 0 off the first 10 overs, I was beginning to regret both decisions. A few loose deliveries early on from Tom Hilton and myself saw the ball fizz to the boundary too often during the power play. It wasn't until the 15th over that we finally made the breakthrough with Kev having Butler caught by Tom Hilton at Mid Off the ball after I'd dropped him off my own bowling, (64 for 1 after 15 overs). This brought Singh to the crease and he immediately set about the bowling also. At 20 overs Brigstock were 101 for 1 with both batsmen going strongly. Zahid mirza and Ian Street took over the bowling duties and we started to regain a little more control of the runs and after a couple more catches went begging , Brigstock had reached 176 for 1 off 30 overs. It wasn't until the 34th over that we finally picked up the second wicket with Ian bowling Singh for 61 with the score on 202. what followed was two more wickets for Ian also bowled for just 4 runs and the score on 206 for 4 after 36 overs. Ian finished with decent figures of 10-2-3-46. The last 9 overs saw Brigstock hit another 46 runs for the loss of no more wickets finishing up at 252 for 4 off their allotted 45 overs. Ian Sharp had batted all the way through for an impressive 133 not out.

Horton approached our reply with the knowledge that there were no real demons in the pitch and that we'd got plenty of batting to come to give the run chase a good old go. However after 4 overs we were 0 for 2 with both openers Harvey Cooke and Kiron Das picking up ducks. The ball was not coming on to the bat liked it did for them and with the odd ball shooting along the floor it made runs hard to come by.
Zahid Mirza and Mike McDonnell batted well putting together a partnership of 80 before Zahid was caught at Long Off for 37 in the 27th over. Mike was next to go LBW to Jamie Mills just 2 short of what would have been a well deserved 50 with the score on 98 for 4 off 31 overs. We were never really going to reach their total despite good efforts from Graham Harris with a quick 19 and a spirited 31 from Ted Flynn and When the innings finished we ended up 176 for 9 off our 45 overs. Mills ended up with figures of 3 for 35. This was however our best batting performance of the season so far and had we batted first we may have been able to put their batsmen under more pressure and the outcome might have been more favourable, I'll bear that in mind the next time I win the toss! ( I think I'll talk to the boys next time).

Result Brigstock 2nd XI win by 76 runs. Points Brigstock 20 Horton 3

Our game this Saturday is away at Bugbrooke who currently sit at the bottom of Division 8 Two places below us.

Report by Kevin Taylor 3rd XI captain.