Brent Fleming and Craig Gibb got The Willows off to a steady start, with an opening stand of 27. Then Brent and Nick Hill put on a good 48 for the second wicket, and at 80/2 we looked well poised for a decent total. However after Brent retired, two quick run outs torpedoed our middle order and we never got any momentum after that. We were pinned down by some accurate bowling by Ben Breitmeyer, Mike “Scrumpy” Johnson and captain John Masefield, and reached 135/8 in our 35 overs.

This looked 40 runs short of a competitive total – especially as our attack lacked any pace at all, with one of our opening bowlers unwell and the other injured. Initially our all spin attack did well to have them 22/2, but then Archie Prain and Matt Everest took the game away from us in an aggressive partnership of 74. Richard and Ben Breitmeyer, along with Johnny Pugh, kept the momentum going and even Andrew Nuttall, for all his variety and wiles, couldn’t stem the flow of runs. Despite our best efforts, the Craz in the end won comfortably by 6 wickets.