Braintree’s 2nd string ended a 6-game losing streak in emphatic style as the crushed 4th placed Kesgrave by 137 runs to move themselves out of the drop zone and into 10th place.

As seems to be the norm this season Braintree lost what looked to be an important toss and were asked to bat on a pitch that had taken a lot of rain over the course of the week and was slowly drying in the blustery conditions. Dave Hale and Jamie Foyster found the going tough early on as the variable bounce and the slowness of the wicket made it difficult for them to score and just as they had begun to find their feet Kesgrave struck three times quickly to take early control. Firstly, Foyster fell LBW to Brooks from a shortish delivery that kept low and then Hale was bowled by an superb delivery the moved away to beat his defence and clip the top of off stump. Joe Osborne came and went as he too was out LBW to the excellent Nathan Pryke who rarely missed his areas in a tight spell.

At 31-3 Nick Lockhart and skipper Andrew Sherry needed to consolidate and for a short period did just that until the introduction of new bowlers into the attack gave them opportunity to accelerate. The control of Brooks and Pryke had made way for some wayward bowling and the Braintree middle order capitalised brilliantly. In a fantastic partnership of 131 Lockhart played the support role to the aggressive Sherry who pounced on anything remotely short and deposited it to the fence. In one particular over sent down by Parry Minhas he took full advantage of the short leg boundary and smashed 4 sixes and a four followed by a single to retain the strike as he raced to 87 from 59 balls before he was caught at backward point having top edged another attempted pull shot. Braintree had reached what they had initially thought would be a defendable target at 162-4 but had 15 overs still to bat. As the set batsmen Lockhart started to move through the gears and struck a couple of fine drives to the fence before he was caught for 44 but a fine 50 stand between the experienced Geoff Eveling and Danny King propelled Braintree past 200 and just 5 short of 250 when King was run out attempting a 4th run! Karl Parker came in to join Eveling for the final over and the 2 of them pushed the score to daunting 254-6 – a great all-round performance from the Dolphins.

With a strong wind and a variable wicket to bowl on, plus the eccentric but equally dangerous Bruce Marques opening the batting, Sherry opted for spin from the start, and it was a master stroke as Shaun Gould removed Marques for 4 in his second over and then the skipper himself bowled Brooks with a peach for 3 to leave Kesgrave reeling on 12-2. But just as Braintree had done, Kesgrave re-grouped with Akhilendra Gogna and Sree Natarajan pouncing on anything loose as they chipped away consistently at 6 an over to stay up with the rate. After steady spells from Gould and Calley Foyster the 3rd spin option of Dave Hale came into the attack and, in partnership with Danny King, turned the game in the visitor’s favour. Having survived a dropped catch earlier in Hale’s first over Gogna gave Lockhart a second opportunity which he did not miss and the partnership of 89 was broken. King then removed Battula for 2 before Hale bowled Oli Hopes for a duck. Two fantastic pieces of fielding then followed as firstly Karl Parkers direct hit saw the end of Kesgrave skipper Pryke for 2 and then Geoff Eveling produced some clever work from cover to run out Sree for 52. Having spotted that the batsmen was lazily returning to his crease the previous ball, Eveling threw the stumps down with the batsmen a good foot short of his ground to leave Kesgrave 117-7. Hale and King then ripped through the final 3 withing the space of 8 balls, from 101-2 the Suffolk side had collapsed to 117 all out with the final 4 wickets falling on that score. Hale finished with 3-11 whist King returned 3-27