Bad weather threatened, but Cricket prevailed, for the last Willows fixture of the season.

The Willows won the toss and elected to bat, were soon into their work with a solid opening stand between Tom Latham and Adam Hastilow, before the former departed with a score at 52. The momentum continued for The Willows with Hastilow and Matthew Rowe gathering a further 108 for the second wicket.

The departure of Hastilow sparked a minor collapse with the Combined side fighting back to have The Willows teetering at 172 for 5, before cameo innings from Philip Maw and Corey James ensured a respectable score of 293 for 8 from 50 overs.

For the Country Combined XI Tim Harrison bowled tidily picking up 3-55 and he was well supported by M Dobbs with 2/42 and M Jones 2/45.

An early break through by The Willows meant that the run chase for the Combined XI would be a tough one. An excellent partnership between Dobbs and Goldstein contributed 51 runs, with Goldstein going on to make a well compiled 61. Tight bowling by The Willows contributed to a steady fall of Combined wickets but in saying that the Combined total of 209 for 9 from their 50 overs was more than respectable. Grant Stewart in particular mustered good pace, and bowled with excellent control supported by Boock, Cortesi, Drayton and Rowe, who all made the captain’s job an easy one by demonstrating that line and length will always outdo pace.

As is often the way with School XI’s, not enough pressure was placed by the batsmen on the fielding side by building partnerships, or regularly turning the strike over with well taken singles, or by forcing fielding errors by running the first run hard – all good lessons school boys should understand.

The Combined Country XI were a pleasure to play against as they competed well, demonstrated much promise as Cricketers, and most importantly represented themselves, their families and supporters in an excellent manner.