After recording five straight wins Braintree’s First Eleven have now suffered back to back to defeats following Saturday’s six wicket loss at home to Sudbury Seconds.
Chris Leech won the toss and elected to bat first however a heavy rain shower delayed the start for the best part of 20 minutes. When proceedings did get underway, openers Leech and Matt Renvoize soon took a liking to the opposition bowling reaching a 50 partnership in only the seventh over. Runs continued to flow on a regular basis, with the pair finding the boundary ropes on a number of occasions despite the damp outfield.
Renvoize reached his 50 as he struck another boundary and he found the ropes twice more but he lost his wicket as he was caught by Tom Park off the bowling of Stuart Whitehart. Leach reached his half century with a quick single unfortunately he was immediately trapped LBW by Gallagher.
The Dolphins innings spluttered as they lost four quick wickets, from a position of 121 for 1 they collapsed to 135 for 6 inside eight overs. Rory Ainsley (0), Chris Hinks (5) and Jamie Foyster (5) were all caught attempting to push the score along whilst Guy Walton (1) was clean bowled.
After a slow start Luke Gouldstone began to score runs freely, Geoff Eveling stayed with him for a while however having scored 11 he was adjudged LBW. Glen Newham (0) and Himesh Patel (2) were unable to stay with Gouldstone either. Looking to push Braintree’s score over 200 and therefore reaching his half century, Luke could only found the hands of Park in the deep. Joel Ainsley remained 3 not out.
Having defended lower totals in previous weeks the Dolphins were hopeful of doing the same again, especially when Gouldstone dismantled Whitehart’s stumps with Sudbury having only 10 runs on the board. However veteran Pete Siegert and D Crame had different ideas as they put on 102 runs for the second wicket.
Braintree eventually got a breakthrough as Chris Hinks tempted Siegert and Gouldstone took an excellent catch, the same Hinks / Gouldstone combination then captured the wicket of Dale Brett but by then the damage was done