Braintree’s 2nd XI continued their march towards promotion with another big win at home to Woolpit III’s
On a glorious day the toss was going to be important and skipper Andrew Gowers came up trumps once again allowing his team to set a huge 321-5 for their opponents to chase down.
After a loss of concentration cost Dave Hale his wicket for 12, Ian Johnson and Jamie Foyster took to the Woolpit attack with Ian Johnson bring up his maiden league 50 off of just 40 balls. He batted in his usual style and hit 8 fours and a six in his entertaining innings until he was deceived by the loop of leg spinner Harry Jaggard having just secured his half century.
Guy Walton showed signs of returning to form with a bright 21 before he was caught off of the bowling of Will Nunn for 21 and Andrew Gowers was LBW to Jaggard from his first ball shortly afterwards to leave Braintree on 134-4. Not struggling as such but not where they had hoped to be.
Meanwhile, at the other end, Foyster was accumulating nicely and having also brought up a half century, started to put the hammer down and pepper the short legside boundary hitting Amber Bradnam for 2 consecutive sixes. When he was eventually bowled for 77 by Percy Britton Andrew Sherry joined Geoff Eveling in the middle and between them, they put together a stand of 98 in 14 overs to take the game out of the reach of Woolpit.
Eveling (82*) pushed the ball into gaps nicely and punished anything remotely short while Sherry (42*), although not as fluent as the previous week, looked to target the legside boundary at every opportunity as they took advantage of a tiring attack.
321 was always going to be an impossible task for the visitors and it wasn’t long until they lost first wicket as Himesh Patel sneaked through the defences of the dangerous looking Jess Board for 8. Marcus West and Alex Lomax enjoyed a stand of 49 but they took 16 overs to amass them allowing the run rate to climb to levels even a short boundary and flat pitch wouldn’t help. Once again it was Joe Osborne who came into the attack and made the breakthrough as he took 3 quick wickets to, as good as, out the game to bed. Both West and Lomax edged to Andrew Sherry at second slip and Ben Britton could only find Guy Walton at mid-off. John Fletcher was next to go as he was tempted into a big hit off of Dave Hale, only to find Andy Gowers at deep mid-wicket before Geoff Eveling got in on the act with 2 wickets in consecutive balls. Harry Huffer stumped by Johnson and Bradnam bowled from her first ball. Will Nunn became Hale’s second victim as he pushed a full toss straight back to the bowler before Karl Parker rounded things up with 2 wickets in his only over. Harry Jaggard finding Joe Osborne at short cover and Percy Britton edging to Jamie Foyster at slip. 119 was all that Woolpit could muster as Braintree maintained their 16 point advantage at the top of Div 7