Barrow Gurney’s Sunday XI were the club’s only winners this weekend as they beat Harptree Villages in an exciting low-scoring contest thanks to 8 wickets from the Owen brothers, Kieran and Matt. Barrow Firsts recovered from a poor start to give Bristol University Staff a scare, whilst the depleted seconds suffered an injury which put paid to their chances at Chilcompton.
At East Harptree, Barrow saw a good opening partnership of 58 between Guy Fisher (39) and James Riley (36) before a batting collapse which saw only 3 other batsmen open their account as Barrow faltered to 108 all out,
In reply Harptree started well and with the score 39-0 they looked in a strong position. After a couple of chances were missed, bowling brothers Kieran and Matt Owen bowled Barrow to victory, as Kieran took 3/15 in his 8 overs, whilst Matt had the remarkable figures of 6-4-6-5 as he bowled brisk yorkers at the Harptree batsmen. Harptree folded for 91, as proud father Steve Owen, captain for the day, celebrated an exciting win.
On Saturday at Hobbs Lane, Barrow Firsts had also struggled with the bat, as batting first, they were restricted to 174. Mark Fisher (39) and Premil Fernando (also 39) led a lower order fight back after the top order had failed. Although Hashan Mudiyanselage took 3/22, briefly curtailing Bristol University Staff’s charge for victory, they achieved the target with 4 overs to spare.
At Chilcompton, Barrow 2s faced a long journey, and started with only 10 players due to a late injury, and the situation soon got much worse as Barrow player, Nick Heal, was injured whilst fielding resulting in a lengthy delay and a reduction in overs. Chilcompton took full advantage of the 9-man field making 203 off 32 overs.
Ali Hood and Pete Holdaway (26), batted extremely well for the second wicket and briefly kept Barrow in sight of their target, but once Ali had gone for 83, Barrow fell behind the rate and ultimately fell 25 runs short.