raintree cc’s second xi ended their season with a thumping win over Earl Stonham, however their mammoth effort was not enough as they were unfortunately relegated via net run rate.

Braintree’s opening partnership of Dave Hale and Geoff Eveling made a steady but positive start and with the help of some extras, the score had moved to 90 before Eveling was caught for 28 off the bowling of Gregory. Hale continued to tick the score along and reached his 50, a fine way to end the season for Braintree’s talismanic all rounder. Nick Lockhart dug in at the other end and reached 20 before Gregory snuck through his defences. Hale fell soon after to the miserly Macrow who varied his pace nicely during his spell. First team regular Bryn Powell was acting as keeping cover and he struck some brutal shots in his innings of 52 from 40 balls which took Braintree to a defendable total of 228. Patel and Osborne couldn’t add much to the total but Fullgrabe’s typically attacking cameo of 22 finished off the innings nicely for the dolphins.

Braintree knew they needed 20 points to maximise their chances of survival and opening bowler Dan king was on the money right from the very first ball. While the experiment to open with Hale didn’t quite work as intended, King found the breakthrough as Lewis was trapped plumb in front. Fellow opener Martin was aggressive early on, forcing skipper King to chop and change the bowling options. However, Braintree continued to chip away as Edgar feathered one through to Powell off the bowling of king. Himesh Patel then picked up a wicket as Hails top edged one, another catch for Powell. Braintree compounded the visitors misery as King bowled Foster with a peach of a Yorker to leave the score at 73-4. After striking 15 fours in an innings of 66, Martin finally departed after a well judged caught and bowled by Patel. That was the key wicket for the dolphins and another soon fell as Patel picked up his third via a sharp catch from Hale in the gully, the only player on the field who could’ve reached it. C Macrow battled away for 36 balls before Patel castled him and that capped off a fantastic performance from the all rounder, finishing with figures of 4-40 from 12 overs. Another Macrow came and went as Kirsty was caught by Nick Lockhart at mid off, the ball seemingly hanging in the air for an age. That was the first wicket of 3 for Eveling, who conceded just 9 runs from his 7.2 overs. Edgar was caught by king and the final wicket fell as fiery fast bowler Stowe chipped to Sherry at mid off, a good catch from the youngster to complete a resounding victory for the dolphins.

There was now a nervous wait to find out if Braintree had done enough to stay up. However, Bury St edmunds had also picked up 20 points, all while bettering our net run rate. All the other teams in the fight for survival picked up just enough points to send the dolphins down to division 7. A Tough day after fighting so hard, but next year is good opportunity to develop the youth and come back stronger.