No Sunday vals

Goresbrook’s Sunday league side came out second best in an excellent game against Ilford Town at Valentines Park. A quickfire 61 from Frenford man Naail Dar got the hosts off to a flyer and then 47 from Raj Dohal (who in doing so tripled his career runs for Leyton County against Goresbrook) and 58* from Etinder Bopara, brother of Essex star Ravi, took Ilford Town to 228-8 from their 40 overs. Bobby Granger (2-32) and Danny Gillham Jnr (2-34) were the pick of the Goresbrook bowling on a typically fine Valentines Park wicket.

In reply despite 53 from Aaron Scott and 56 from Gillham, Brook started to slip behind the required rate as a result of a fine spell from Surjeet Ubhi (3-23), Gillham's men eventually closing on 201-7, some 27 runs short with former Valentines Park scoreboard operator Mark Bird left not out for a debonair 21*, the suspicion being that had he been introduced higher up the order the result could have been different (we would have lost by 23).

If the play-cricket scorecard is to be believed, all Goresbrook players (bar those who fell for a duck) scored at better than a run a ball, which makes it incredible that we lost chasing 228 in a 40 over game, the only logical explanation I can think of is that we were robbed of about 14 overs, as it surely can't have been the case that we actually scored too slowly in the middle orders and left ourselves a last 8 over thrash that Jos Buttler would have struggled to achieve.