Brook youngsters sneak past Rainham

With many of Goresbrook's successful T20 side either working, at Centerparcs or having a night in with their girlfriend, Jordan Harris turned to youth against neighbours Rainham and his young charges (and Richie) didn't disappoint, sticking at it with the ball when the tide seemed to be turning against them to grind out a narrow victory in an excellent game against neighbours Rainham.

After winning the toss and electing to bat, Goresbrook got off to a start that would have been considered leisurely on a Saturday with Craig Irving struggling to a 7 ball duck against the pacy O'Neill and then Shane Barwick taking one more ball to get off the mark against some accurate stuff from Ronnie Jackson. This forced Kurt Whisker into the role of aggressor, a mode that it would be fair to say doesn't come naturally to this most mild mannered and pragmatic of cricketers, however with Rainham helpfully dropping a few short for him to pull/hook and with the odd lofted drive the 1's skipper ensured that the innings didn't sink without trace before he fell to spinner Patel for 26.

At the other end Barwick had by this time woken up and he started to find the boundary as he accumulated 32 from 39 deliveries, however at the 15 over mark Brook had reached just 81-2 on a reasonable track and were in need of some fireworks in the last 5 overs to post something that they could defend. With the arrival of Billy Chapman to join Jordan Calverley, Brook had their two biggest hitters at the crease and despite neither really being able to lay a bat on the excellent O'Neill who bowled his 4 overs for 13, they did manage to tuck into Ankit's medium pacers, taking 21 off the 18th over to nudge the score to 135-3 when the 20 overs were up.

The general consensus was that that was about 20 runs short with a somewhat depleted bowling lineup and so it appeared as Sid Patel started confidently with 27 and the Rainham top 5 all made a contribution as they reached 90-3 in the 14th over, Joe Barwick and 15 year old Harry Jackson bowling through for solid returns of 1-33 and 1-28 respectively.

However the turning point was the reintroduction of Shane Barwick who immediately bowled O'Neill for 17 breaking a well set partnership and with the last 6 overs to be shared between Barwick, Richie Williams and Craig Ivey's selection of cutters and slower balls, the last 45 runs were not going to be easily surrendered.

As it turned out, they weren't surrendered at all as Rainham lost regular wickets, with the run out of the established batsmen Foster by Jordan Calverley being a particular body blow. Both Ivey & Williams dried up the runs with identical figures of 1-24 and with Barwick showing his class with 2-14, the game came down to the wire.

A late rally for the 9th wicket between youngsters Jackson and Herbert saw Rainham requiring 10 off the last over, but Craig Ivey has 99 slower balls for such occasions and Rainham couldn't pick one, his final six balls going for just 3 runs, one of those being an overthrow, as Brook sneaked home by 6 runs to book a home semi-final against one of the big boys.