1's fall short in 246 chase

Looking to bounce back after a couple of bad reverses, Kurt Whisker's 1st XI were up against from the moment he lost the toss and visitors High Roding elected to bat on a steamy afternoon on an excellent M&B wicket.

Roding powered past 100 without loss and with league rep opener Adam Holgate going along beautifully it looked like Goresbrook might be chasing 300 again for the second successive match. That they weren't was down to a spirited performance in the last 15 overs, the spinners breaking through to pick up a couple of wickets before Shane Barwick bowled Holgate for a superb 121. The seamers then kept things tidy late on, Kane Messenger and Daryl Forward taking a wicket a piece as High Roding closed on 246-5 from their 45 overs.

That total seemed well within Goresbrook’s capabilities for much of the innings as despite the early losses of Joe Curley, who lost his middle stump bowled leaving an in-swinger and Kurt Whisker, who nearly lost his cool after being adjudged caught behind after a play & miss.

However, a big partnership between Shane Barwick (87) and Jordan Calverley (86) kept the 1's up with the rate and once Barwick fell, Toby Maund and then Kane Messenger kept the score ticking along in tandem with Calverley to the extent that going into the last 3 overs, Brook required 21 runs from 18 balls with 6 wickets still in hand.

Hot favourites you would have thought.....unfortunately however, Calverley holed out in the 43rd over and this exposed an out of form lower middle order to a run chase where they needed to put bat on ball immediately. The High Roding bowlers kept their nerve rather better than the Goresbrook batsmen did and going into the last over, 12 runs were still required and Craig Ivey could only manage 8, leaving Goresbrook losers by just 3 runs.

The experienced Gallop was the pick of the bowlers for High Roding with 2-23 from 10 on the spot overs bowled straight through with the new ball, but his youthful colleagues battled hard in the closing overs and deserved their triumph.

The 1's head to Rayleigh (Rawreth technically) next week, hopefully on the back of qualification from our Essex Cricket Foundation T20 group, as a win against West Essex on Wednesday would confirm us as Met Group winners.