A masterful hundred by Mark Brown set up an opening win for Barrow Gurney in Division 4 of the Bristol & District League over Uni Staff.
Barrow, batting first, started positively with Jason Cryans promising rather more than the 20 runs he scored, but captain Ed Holdaway, despite finding timing the ball a little tricky, continued the positive batting accompanied by Brown who look in ominous form. It was a surprise when Holdaway edged behind for 47, and with Josh Yelland falling next ball, it was a concern that last season’s frailties may return. But Brown, hitting some big sixes and being severe on anything short, found good support from Ben Hodges (33). Brown eventually fell for 129 but Barrow’s score of 286-6 was a good one, if not necessarily a winning one at the small Hobbs Lane ground.
Uni Staff, also started strongly and made it clear this as going to be some contest. Charles Clarke took on the mantel of Brown, making 120 with most of the other batters chipping in with double figure scores. Guy Fisher (4/63) too the most wickets but economical spells from Ed Holdaway (2/24) and Mark Fisher (1/24) resulted in 16 overs of Uni Staff’s innings going for only 48 runs. Nevertheless, some destructive hitting of the other bowlers still got them within 13 runs in a good match to start the season.
Barrow 2s started their season away at Hallen. Promoted last year to Division 8 West, the team were in unknown territory and were not fielding their strongest side. Hallen though made heavy weather of their innings against the accurate bowling of Dave Smith (5 overs, 1 wicket for only 5 runs) and Mike York who went on to take 3/20. Paul Gard bowled 7 overs for 22 runs and picked up a couple of wickets too. Hallen making 144-8 in their 40 overs.
Will Thompson’s 44 formed the mainstay of the Barrow reply as they cruised to victory by 6 wickets with 5 overs to spare.