Barrow Gurney’s bowlers were in excellent form this weekend, but were let down by their batting colleagues, finishing on the wrong side of two exciting results.
The Firsts were once again up against higher ranked opposition at Long Ashton where a couple of early strikes by Matt Owen soon had the hosts reeling at 6-3 before taking a third to give him figures of 3/17. Then Barrow captain Frank Forge (4/28) took out the middle order as Long Ashton collapsed to 107 all out. The bowlers were grateful to some excellent catching from the Barrow fielders.
At 42-0 the game looked in the bag for Barrow but when opening pair Bernie Forge (16) and Phil Milton (36) fell in quick succession a collapse ensued against some quality spin bowling and with the game in the balance thereafter, the pressure told and they were dismissed 8 runs short.
Barrow 2’s Steve Owen meanwhile was a handful to Failand & Portbury 2s as he took 5 for 25. Backed up by a bowling attack mixing experience with new players, the team did really well to dismiss their opposition for 187.
However again the batting failed to fire as only Peter Rooney (24) and Ali Hood (23) provided much resistance as Failand’s Sam Gunarathne’s spell of 5 for16 sealed the game with Barrow well short of the target.
On Sunday it was Kian Ware’s turn to impress with the ball taking 3 Blagdon wickets for 32 as the Barrow bowlers proved a threat to the home side’s batting, all except Martyn Mail who hit 111 out of a total of 169. Barrow set out well with Ware setting the pace with another quickfire 64 supported by Frank Forge (38). When they departed the scoring rate slowed dramatically and the target began to creep up. Jonny Sykes (18) took Barrow to within a boundary of victory off the last ball but it was not to be.
