1st XI start league campaign with an exciting win
Posted by Nobody on 13 May 2012
Broadway 1st v Bearley - Premier Division, Saturday 12th May
The sun came out in Broadway as the Club saw it's first cricket of the season so far. Welcoming newly promoted Bearley, Broadway won the toss and invited the visitors to bat. The pitch, while surprisingly dry on the surface, offered the bowlers plenty of assistance and the lack of pace made stroke play difficult. Bearley opener and captain Lee Ross made light of this however with an entertaining and stylish 49.
The visitors started positively, but lost wickets at regular intervals. With Broadway's seamers understandably rusty regular extras assisted Bearley and they finished the innings as second top scorer. Powell 1 for 44, Stewart 2 for 27 and Horsburgh 2 for 30 chipped away at the Bearley batsmen but it was the introduction of Beale (5 for 26) which proved their real undoing. He enticed a ferocious yet uppish drive from Ross on 49 and Matthew Phillips claimed a memorable catch at mid-off. A late flurry of boundaries from the lower order improved a potentially meagre looking total to 138 all out, and sent the away side in to tea with a positive attitude.
Broadway's response started haplessly as their captain G Evans fell to the first ball of the reply. In getting the wicket Layton suffered an injury which meant his first over was also his last. This heaped more pressure onto the Kiwi Anderson, who bowled with pace and he made early in roads with what looked to be a match winning opening spell. Anderson cleaned bowled Close, Mark Evans first ball, and the dogged Nigel Evans to reduce Broadway to 40 for 5. Unfortunately for him he found Jamie Powell in typically belligerent mood. After an untypical, circumspect start Powell blasted 34 off a single over to wrestle the initiative. Powell (not out 62) was vitally dropped on 49, and used his life to guide the home side through as, Anderson (4 for 19) was reintroduced but to no avail. Broadway taking the spoils by 3 wickets to get the season off to a winning start.
In a successful start to the campaign the seconds also prevailed over Rowington 2s by four wickets in a low scoring encounter. Rowington were all out for 72 and Broadway overhauled their total for the loss of 6 wickets.
