Barrow Gurney welcomed Long Ashton to Hobbs Lane to play our First XI for the first time in many years; there was talk before the game about what to do if Barrow won the toss, however yet again the opposition won it and Barrow were put into bat. Ali Hood and Sam Turner opened up, Sam despite yet another new bat, first to go from a full toss that he lost against the beautiful blue sky. Nick Moore off of the back of his ton last week came and went quickly chasing a wide one leaving Barrow 52-2 in the 11th over. Mick Hardy and Ali had to rebuild and make sure that Barrow didn’t lose any more wickets and took them to 94 before Mick was given LBW for 23. At 111-4 the game was in the balance, Mark Brown and captain Phil Milton took the total to 175 until Mark middled it only to pick out wide fine leg, lightning then striking twice as Paul Glazzard did exactly the same thing just after. Unfortunately the tail didn’t wag much, Phil departing for 45 in the penultimate over, with Barrow finishing on 203 all out.
James Riley and Paul Glaz opened up and although bowling well didn’t get the early breakthrough Barrow needed defending a relatively low total. Enter Rob Figs who bowled beautifully, with pace, accuracy and real ‘grunt’ picking up the opener caught at slip by Mick in his third over. Rob got another couple bowled, absolute gems of balls before Browner had one caught off a wide one. Long Ashton were 111-4, exactly the same as Barrow had been, and the game was in the balance. Rob, bowling straight through, picked up Long Ashton’s captain caught and bowled and completed his 5 wicket haul in his last over. The Long Ashton opener however was still in and the opposition were 182-7 chasing 204. Phil decided to gamble and brought Glaz back on; the opener decided to charge down first ball of the spell, missed it, and was duly stumped. Game on! The big hitting number 9 then tried to smash Glaz into the car park for a match deciding 6 only for Browner to pull off one of the best catches you will ever see jumping and taking it well above his head down in the corner. With Riley bowled out and Browner still buzzing from his catch he was the obvious one to ball the last over with Long Ashton 9 down but only needing 8 to win. Browner duly speared in a ‘double wicket style’ yorker to seal an absolutely brilliant win.