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| Norton Lindsey 188-4 beat Alcester & Ragley Park 213 all out | |
Norton Lindsey won the toss and put Ragley in to bat in overcast conditions, a decision that looked to be misplaced as openers Michael Bennett and Michael Coombs put on a partnership of 50 before Bennett was out for 30 ending a solid looking foundation. Coombs was out for 31 and was quickly followed by captain Adam Warbrick with the score at 86 for 3.
Lewis Clark came in at number 5 and started to build a partnership with Strain to steady the ship. Clark was looking very comfortable with the bowling, until he was out caught and bowled for 16. Strain was in fine form and was mainly dealing in boundaries when Adam Peachey entered the fray and started to up the run rate with the majority of his runs on the leg side. Strain passed his 50 and the score had moved on to 190 for 4 with 7 overs left before Peachey was bowled for 28. This then started a collapse with the lower order getting out cheaply whilst Strain was still scoring freely at the other end, Ragley managed to bat until the 45th over and posted a score of 212 with Gary Strain belying his years and scoring a superb 82 not out. It was a decent total but with the bottom 5 batsmen scoring 4 between them it meant that the score was still something that Norton Lindsey could realistically aim for. Ragley got of to a great start by taking a wicket in the 3rd over off the bowling of Arthur Bennett and then Marc Woolley dropped a full length diving catch of Norton's number 3 batsman on 4 runs which would prove to be a very costly as he finally ended up on 120 not out. Norton started to score at a good rate which was helped by the very wayward bowling being served up by Ragley. A mix up by the batsmen provided an easy run out chance for Dave Pilkington which he made hard work by a poor throw and Strain managed to take the bails off just in time. Warbrick then came on to bowl and after last weeks great performance of getting 7-16 he was quickly brought down to earth by being hit for a 4 on his first ball. Norton managed to get to 120 for 3 after 21 overs with Warbrick taking a wicket, but there innings was interrupted by a short rain shower. After the rain interval Norton Lindsey was set a revised total of 188 to win of 40 overs. In the first over bowled by Capron there was 2 chances that were dropped, which then set the tone for the rest of the game. Norton then proceeded to score rapidly with Warbrick taking a wicket but this didn't hold up their progress and Norton reached there target with 9 overs remaining and the loss of only 4 wickets. It was a poor bowling display by Ragley with Woolley being the exception with figures of no wicket for 18 runs off 9 overs. |