Rain ruined Barrow Gurney First’s chances of a win against PR Royals, as the heavens opened with Barrow in a strong position but marginally behind the run rate leaving the visitors to Hobbs Lane as victors. Meanwhile at Stanton Drew the rain failed to come quickly enough or for long enough to prevent the seconds losing against a good Whitchurch 3rd XI.
After last week’s defeat to top of the table Bristol Lions this week the Firsts faced PR Royals who were second in the table.
With the opposition only having 6 players at the toss PR Royals decided to bat when they won the toss but Barrow began brilliantly with James Riley picking up the opener to first ball of the match and Ed Holdaway also taking one in his first over too. The dangerous number 3 was next to go as Phil Milton took a bullet of a catch to leave the opposition reeling at 22-3. Wickets fell regularly as Phil brought on Mark Fisher (1/35) and Frank Forge (2/45), leaving Royals 81-7 at one point, and Barrow looking at chasing around a hundred second innings. As has been the case several times this season however Barrow then struggled to either contain or take wickets, despite Ed (2/45) and Riley (2/26) coming back on, and a hundred partnership developed before Ed bowled the number 8 for 34 with the Royals now on 153. Their number 9 (Habib) finished on 73* and Royals finished 212 all out in 38.2 overs. A high score considering their position but still short of a par score.
Will Kerswell and Bernie Forge opened up again and were looking good but Bernie was bowled for 18 with the score on 19. Sam Turner, in at 3, and Will took the score to 76 before Will was bowled for 33. However, the heavens then opened with Barrow on 95-2 from 24.1 overs. This left the home side behind the run rate by about 12 runs and despite Barrow being perfectly set going in the last 20 over this counted for nothing as the game was abandoned and they lost on net run rate.
Overall, Phil Milton felt that Barrow had improved their fielding and batting from last week but that the bowling attack needed to be a little smarter about how to bowl to the decent lower order batsmen.
The seconds struggled from the word go at the wind-swept Stanton Drew ground against a Whitchurch team competing for promotion.
Put into bat Barrow were soon in trouble losing both openers cheaply and in fact only Ali Hood (47) and Adam Brace (20) made a significant contribution to a disappointing score of 128. Ben Thatcher was the pick of the opposition attack taking 4/12 with some sharp outswing bowling.
In reply Whitchurch were never in trouble as Ben Lloyd anchored the innings with 62 not out. A dropped catch and a rejected appeal for a caught behind cost Barrow a point but overall the team deserved little from a poor performance.
The overnight rain put paid to the Sunday XI game against Lympsham & Belvedere thus being the first senior league game being totally lost to the weather this season.