We travelled to Brockhampton, knowing that we needed to avoid defeat to maintain our chance of winning the league. Brockhampton have a strong side and beat us by 29 runs in the cup a few weeks ago, so we knew it would be a tough ask. We went into it with the mantra of improve our batting, bowling and fielding by 10 runs each and we could squeak a win…

Ethan won the toss and chose to bat. He opened with Elliot and they got us off to a customary good start, moving to 23-0 off the first 3 overs with some aggressive shot making against a good opening bowling attack. In the 4th over Ethan was caught by an excellent catch at short mid-off, and Elliot followed soon after nicking off to leave us 44-2 off 7 overs. A decent start, but needing our middle order to contribute to help us get to a competitive score. Will Beaumont and Tommy then continued with the positive intent, Will hitting some excellent shots through the off-side whilst Tommy relied on his customary powerful pull shot and we progressed to 70-2 in the 11th over. We then lost a cluster of wickets, first Tommy to a tight run-out decision, followed by Will getting caught, Noah bowled and Carlos caught – leaving us on 90-6 and in danger of finishing below par. But Ewan and Dom put on an excellent 7th wicket partnership of 31 to take us to a competitive 121-6 off 20 overs. Definitely something to bowl at, with contributions from the whole batting line-up.

Ethan and Noah opened our bowling attack, and both bowled good opening spells but came up against a pair of excellent Brockhampton batsmen who played aggressively but with authentic cricket shots. They raced to 49-0 after 7 overs and then 65-0 after 10 to leave them looking well placed to chase down the total. Carlos then bowled an excellent spell, troubling both openers until he finally dismissed one of them, getting it through his defences to bowl him out for 30. We then followed this up with a brilliant run-out, Ethan with a powerful throw from the deep and some smart wicket-keeping from Elliot to run out their other opener for 39 and get us right back in the game. Two more quick wickets followed, one each for Ewan and Dom, and suddenly at 80-4 off 15 overs we were favourites. Their number 5 batsman swung from the hip and connected with a few, moving them to 97-4 off 17 and they needed 25 off 18. No finger nails left at this point. Tommy bowled an excellent 18th over, taking a wicket and stemming the run rate a touch; after Noah’s final over they were on 112-5 and needing 10 to win off Ethan’s last over.

The first ball was clubbed towards the square leg boundary…. Surely not a 6?? No – Noah held on to a fantastic catch on the boundary, advantage us. But their number 7 and 8 batsmen can both bat, and the next two balls are also hit powerfully towards the boundary. Both are fielded, but 2 runs from each of them, and a briefly dislocated / relocated shoulder from one of our fielders meant we would play the last 3 balls with only 10 fielders! A dot ball was followed by a ball which leapt into the air off the pitch, flying over batsman and keeper for a wide, fielded by fine leg. So they need 4 to win off the last 2 balls. Another ball flayed to the boundary for 2 runs sees them needing 2 to win off the last ball…. Ethan brings the field in looking for the win, and the final ball is clipped off the batsman’s legs – towards one of our fielders – dropped! But it was going fast enough to be a boundary if he missed it, and the resultant single meant the game finished in a tie! One of the most exciting games I have seen in a long time, and the final over had it all.

Lots for us to work on still – fielding in particular still has plenty of room for improvement – but what a game, and what a result against a really strong opponent. Also worth noting that we conceded around 30 fewer extras than last week against Wormelow, and the bowling was significantly more accurate. Great effort from the whole team, and leaves us top of the league with 4 games to play. Next week sees us travel to Colwall, another strong side that we haven’t beaten at this level for a long time, so will be one more challenge for the team to tackle.