It was a disappointing week for Barrow teams despite a wonderful hundred from Ed Holdaway on Saturday as he dominated the scoring at the Bristol Cricket Club. The seconds’ game was cancelled due to Hambrook being short of players, which was a good result in terms of points but disappointing to those scheduled to play. Sunday saw the 3rds lose to Portishead.
Batting first at Bristol 3rds, Barrow lost their first 5 wickets cheaply due to some fine bowling from the Bristol openers and a couple of poor shots. As a low score beckoned Ed Holdaway and James Riley came together and started to rebuild, cautiously at first against some accurate bowling but as the heat told and the attack tired a few loose deliveries were severely punished as Ed in particular took advantage of the short boundaries hitting 6 sixes and 12 fours in an exhibition of clean and sensible hitting finishing on 112. James Riley provided steady support in his knock of 43 taking the score to 228-8 after 45 overs. Much higher than it might have been but still a bit below par.
In reply, Bristol lost an early wicket to Ed, but Mike Love made an unbeaten century of his own in a less flamboyant manner to move Bristol inexorably towards their target. Frank Forge had the No 3 caught behind but there were few other alarms as the home side won by 8 wickets.
At Portishead on Sunday, Barrow were asked to field and put in one of their best Sunday performances against a talented home team. After some tight opening overs from Mel Owen and Paul Gard, Kieran Owen made the breakthrough (2/37 in all). But it was the brilliant run out of Garrett (71) by keeper Jonny Sykes throwing to the bowlers end and removing one bail which resulted in Portishead losing a succession of wickets as Gard (2/24) and Oscar Livesey (1/34) bowled good spells before Jonny gave up the gloves and had his first bowl for over 2 months, destroying the tail with 3/11 in 4 impressive overs. 180-9 was a modest total and Barrow had done really well to restrict the home side as Barrow’s bowlers found good support in the field from young and old.
In reply, Barrow struggled from the off against a youthful attack with only a 54 partnership between Jonny Sykes (31) and Paul Gard (24) giving some hope that the target might still be achievable but despite late order cameos from Oscar (23) and Rod Reeves (23 not out) Barrow folded to 134 all out.