The 3’s traveled to the salubrious Brackley Cricket Club in what proved to be a game dominated by a damp, sticky and seemingly uncovered track.
winning the toss Banbury elected to field, which seemed to be a good deciesion as the host crawled to 57 at half way. With a shortage of senior bowlers it was left to firey left arm seamer Andy Stevens to bowl a mamouth stint (26-7-47-2). He controlled one end fantastically and was unlucky not to come away with more than his 2 wickets, despite having 2 catches to 1st slip not given.
Stevens was adied well by the young seamers, Mark Pallett playing for his first gme in Div 5 ended with fighures of 7-1-16-2 and was again unlucky not to pick up more as M.Cartwright(36) chipped the ball into alsorts of gaps. Brackley looked for a quick flurry in the last 10 (a shock as the run rate went from 2 too 5.9 an over) with Cartwright and M.Lowe(24) looking to finally play shots, but some good death bowling from Charlie Hill curtailed this as he ended with 12-3-27-4 and Brackleyfinished on 155-8
In reply Ali Jarvis (25) (struggling with sugar and hydration levels after the wedding of the year) and Anas Ahmed(14) made a lively start. After Ahmed was run out coming bck for a second up the hill Jarvis was soon to follow off the Bowling of K.Cartwright (18-5-33-3) the runs then dried up as a middle order of Lambden, Hill and Mobbs struggled due to some tidy bowling and very helpful wicket. It was the introduction of Will Briggs (23*) and skipper Chris Phillips (23*) that put a bit more emphasis on Banbury’s batting, this seemingly scared the Brackley side who soon lost interest in winning the game and were more content to post sweepers and contain. Some good running from got Banbury to with the draw points at 126-6, as they scappered a single of Brigg’s grill on the last ball.
A slightly disapointing day for a weakened Banbury side who could only pick up 5 points in the failed run chase.