After the great excitement of the news of the First XI result and the tension of the Second XI near miss on Saturday, surely all would be much calmer for the Sunday XI playing St Bonaventure’s at Barrow?
St Bon’s arrived one short, so Frank Forge reluctantly took a break from his A level studies to make up the opposition XI and they batted first on the same track used in the seconds’ game on Saturday. Kieran Owen (0/20) opened up bowling accurately and with some swing, whilst it was good to welcome back Liam Moore (2/27) who bowled with real pace and obtained quite some bounce from the Fox & Goose end dismissing opener Rossiter for 14 with a good caught and bowled. After 10 overs St Bon’s struggled to 38 for 1. Oscar Livesey came on to bowl 8 straight overs, and soon realising he needed to push the ball through on this wicket, he had the other opener LBW whilst Connor Jones removed Sprawson for 5 to leave St Bon’s 36 for 3. At this point the St Bon’s skipper, Hickey, dug in. Oscar eventually dismissed the opposing keeper with another caught and bowled, but not before the same batsman, having seemingly played a defensive shot contrived to slip in the crease and somehow collapsed on his stumps; for quite a while no-one seemed to have any clue as to what had happened, more concerned for the batsman. But as no-one appealed and the Barrow captain declined to do so he was able to carry on a little longer. (The skipper had to cough up a choccy bar to make amends to Oscar though!)
Carr came to the crease, a fluent left-hander, especially through the off side, he soon overtook his captain to make 50, although Hickey, played into form by Mark Gracey’s two overs for 21, soon joined him. A large total loomed when Liam (2/30) and Connor (3/35) were brought back to contain St Bon’s to 175 off 40 overs.
After the usual excellent Halladay tea, James Riley opened the batting instead of the bowling, and despite a few awkward moments against Frank in the opening overs, survived the loss of his captain for a duck to one that cut back sharply off the pitch, and played some cracking shots through the covers and over long-on. Oscar batted three and was just getting into his stride when Frank caught him with tumbling catch off his own bowling, Phil Milton took the side to within striking distance of the win with 38 (including a six and 5 fours).
By mid-innings one of St Bon’s players had to leave, so Bernie Forge hot-foot from a Somerset U17 game at Millfield school helped them in the field. Barrow were well ahead of the scoring rate and needed one good partnership to take them home. Pete Halladay (4 not out) batted for quite a long time, and aimed a few lusty blows but took a few to the body himself, whilst Connor clearly wanted to get off home, striking 38 not out at the other end to leave Barrow 4 wicket winners.
A good game of cricket played in a good spirit. Next week Axbridge at home.