Mark Gracey won the toss and decided to bowl first with Kieran Owen picking up the wicket of English almost immediately. English had scored a 100+ and 60+ score in his last two innings so Barrow knew they had struck gold limiting him to a duck. Little did they know who they had coming up! The wickets kept falling with their other batsmen scoring a combined 60, but their number 2, Wadkar carried on picking up the boundaries and finishing with 110 not out. Kieran and Mike Lilley both bowled well picking up a couple of wickets each with George Healy and Matt Owen both getting one each.
Barrow opened up the batting with the return of “girl power” with Bernie Forge and Ellie Holdaway forming a a solid 50 partnership before Bernie was bowled for 24. Captain, Mark Gracey, then came in and carried on with Ellie before she was bowled for 33. Barrow always seemed slightly behind the run rate but a few quick runs from Jordan Allen (13), Ed Jones (13) and not outs by the captain (65) and George (25) made things closer than they might have been, but Barrow failed to chase down Bradley Stoke’s 194 by only 7 runs.
Things might have turned out very differently if their centurion had been caught off Frank Forge, the ball being adjudged as a no ball, and a couple of close LBW shouts had been given the other way.
Anyway – on to next week, the 2nd XI are playing top of the table Portishead, so lets see if Barrow can get back to winning ways!