Andy won the toss and after a bit of a pause, decided to ask Brooklands to bat first, on a day where the weather wasn’t looking at all promising apart from it being warm and humid, aka sticky.

Andy moved back to the opening pair of Jonny Litler (10/0/77/0) and Adrian Lascu (10/1/53/2) and after an agonizing outing at Bramhall last week, Adrian finally got some reward, trapping Todd Walker (20) LBW at the last ball of the 8th over, Ben Cunliffe (28) was joined by Raheem Tariq (79). The bowling and fielding only permitted them to add 25 runs to the total when Cunliffe was caught by Danny Leech at first slip off Andy Dufty (10/1/46/2). Things looked promising in that 18th over with 2 wickets down for only 68. But Tariq and Sudanshu Rajshetty (22) managed to find holes in the field and added 44 before Rajshetty was found LBW off Dufty. Tariq was then joined by Brookland’s skipper Kevin Carroll (35), who on his last outing at OP had scored a ton. A few lofty blows in Carroll style followed his entrance until Jonny Litler caught him at mid wicket off Lascu. Unfortunately, the 9-over partnership had accelerated the run rate and Brooklands were now 176/4/34/1. And more lusty blows and finding of gaps followed when Jim Hugall (92*) had walked to the crease. Tariq was bowled by Danny Leech (4/0/32/2) 7 overs later, with the score soaring to 234/5 and when Jack Bagshaw (17) was stumped by Frank Farrington giving Leech his second wicket at the end of the 46th over, Andy brought back Litler and Lascu in an attempt to get a few more wickets and stop the easy flow of runs. Unfortunately, neither happened and we faced the second highest total of the day in the 1st division, requiring 327 to win. Jamie Sandlands (10/2/62/0) and James Bell (6/0/54/0) were unlucky in the middle overs when Tariq and Hugall were enjoying finding gaps in the field and the trees outside the boundary.

On to the batters then. Danny Leech (30) and Andy Dufty (1) showed there were plenty of scoring opportunities early on, until Andy was bowled by Charlie Mitchell (6/0/41/2). Mitchell repeated the feat with Frank Farrington (11) in the 6th over but as the score had moved on to 40/2, there was still a lot of positives in the game. Unfortunately Danny was then bowled by Tom Lett (6/1/27/2) and Jonny Litler (11) saw himself brilliantly caught by Tom Hugall off Lett 2 overs later, our best intentions were challenged to say the least, as we were 49/4/8.5. Adrian Lascu (15) tried, first with Arthur MacKenzie (4) and then Ed Roberts (14) but the damage had been done and when Kevin Carroll (3/0/15/3) paired up with Rob Leach (3.2/2/8/0) the runs dried up and we were all out for 91 in the 19th over.
Similar to last week, we tried but failed and will need to pick ourselves up as we know how to play this game our way and get across the line in a much better fashion.

With 2 away matches to play, first to Cheadle and then to 2nd on the table Lindow, we need to take this one on the chin, regroup and hoping some injuries will have improved, try to end this season on a positive.