4th team vs Pak Bristolians
7 July 2021
It was an overcast day at the Brownsword, but the rain was holding off and we were keen to get going against a side we had had a fantastic game against first game of the season.
Pak Bristolians went into bat first and with rain in the air, looked to be positive and made a strong start. The skipper decided to change things up by bringing on leg spinner Sam who made an almost immediate impact, taking the wicket of one of their hard-hitting openers, who looked to hit out, but looped it up only to be caught by Beth. Pak Bristolian’s number 1 and 3 put together a good partnership, until batter number 1 was caught by Matt off the bowling of Mathan for 79. He had scored 134* in our previous encounter, so we knew that was a key wicket. The subsequent batters struggled to get too far into double figures thanks to Scott, Mathan and Thiaan’s good bowling, who each picked up a few middle order wickets. Pak Bristolians ended up on 206-8 off their 40 overs.
Thiaan and Josh opened the batting and got off to an excellent start, keeping up with the run rate (important given the threat of rain), until Thiaan eventually fell for 25, having constructed first wicket partnership of over 90 runs. The rain came down for a short period and Harry joined Josh in the middle. Josh batted superbly, smartly rotating the strike and punishing any loose bowling to the boundary, until he was finally out for 68. There was another downpour, and after some slightly slow work on putting on the covers, the pitch risked becoming a little pavlova-esque, seemingly firm yet a little sticky. Nevertheless, the rain abated and the covers came off, and Bath were left with a reduced target of 186 off 36 overs. It dawned upon Harry that the England game was on, so he set to work dispatching the Pak Bristolian bowling to all parts of the ground, wrapping up the game in a matter of minutes, with Harry finishing on a superb 59*.
A great all-round performance, and it felt good to be back to winning ways which keeps us at the top of the league. Next week takes us away to Bristol Lions.
