Brook lay Old Boys bogey

Goresbrook travelled to OC’s determined to put in a performance at a place which was in danger of becoming a bogey ground for the 1’s given that their record read, played two, lost two, one twitter war with Springfield, before Saturday’s game. Therefore when skipper Kurt Whisker won the toss and elected to bat on a hot afternoon it gave the batsmen a perfect opportunity to post something OC’s couldn’t chase and despite the skipper falling early to paceman Rob Wickham, Goresbrook made good progress through Joe Curley (39) and Shane Barwick, the latter going on to record a season’s best 83. After Curley went, Barwick and Jordan Calvlerley pushed the score on past 150 and when both fell in quick succession, it was left to Toby Maund (26*) to rally the middle order past 225 for maximum batting points, a feat which he achieved in the final over as Goresbrook set their hosts 231 to win.

Old Chelmsfordians never really looked like achieving that as early wicket from new ball pairing Shaun Ross and Daryl Forward were followed up quickly by two Israel Ochwo wickets and an excellent spell from Shane Barwick, the left arm spinner taking 3-25 in his 10 overs as OC’s struggled to 80-6. A fine late cameo from Rob Wickham saw the hosts up over 150, the quick bowler clearly in confident mood after his league rep cameo the previous Wednesday, hitting the ball cleanly for an unbeaten 44, but he ran out of partners as spinners Maund and Kumar picked up the remaining wickets, OC’s falling 66 runs short of their target.