Barnards Green cricket Club Match Reports.

May 7th 2005
Belbroughton vs BGCC second XI	Barnards Green Singles v Alvechurch and Hopwood
Barnardsgreen 2nds travelled to belbroughton on a day of changeable weather,after asking the home side to bat the green soon made inroads into top order.Sam spencer was at last showing signs of the improvement he has made in the winter nets,his opening 8 overs were well directed and brought him the reward of 2 wickets for just 16 runs with more help from the fielders it could of been more productive.Matt brookes continues to impress with his line and length and was unfortunate to only take one wicket in a spell which deserved better .Belbroughton were sruggling at 45 for 3 after 20 overs ,the english summer weather then took over as the players took shelter from a severe hail storm.Play resumed with the evergreen Steve Metcalfe bowling a tight line, he only conceded 20 runs off 8 overs and did not deserve to be wicketless.At the other end Liam paddock bowled his 6 overs with control and movement and was rewarded with a wicket when he yorked willets for a grafting 19.Belroughton then took contol of the innings with a mixture of ariel shots which either just avoided going to hand,and streaky mistimed shots which found their way to the boundry in unusal places.The greens cause was not helped by a mixture of dropped catches and sloppy fielding towards the end of the innings.Belbroughton finished on 186 for 6 wickets with Williamson 60 and T.Raybould 46 being the main contributers. In reply the green never recovered from losing the top four batsmen for 17 runs,first losing Rich Brown to an unessasary swipe across the line,then Judd Doughty and Mark Hooper to mistimed attacking shots then Phil Harris was unlucky when the balled trickled off bat and pad to dislodge the bails.Then the rain which had been threating forced the players to retreat to the pavillion again,after a delay and a further reduction of overs to 40.This made the task of the green getting any result from the game almost impossible,Seve Metcalfe threatened briefly with a well struck 6,Liam Paddock batted maturley and was unlucky to be runout with a deflection off the bowler when backing up for 21,Robbie Tyler then produced a cameo innings hitting two 4's and two 6's in his knock of 26.This brought together the last pair of Graeham Glendenning and Sam Spencer ,they proceeded to play the final 8 overs out for a draw,without any problems.Spencer inparticular proved the critism of his batting last season to be unwarranted.Belbroughtons expierenced bowlers Baggs and Raybould made the batting hard for the young green side,but with a bit more application by the senior members of the side the green should of been able to get close Belbroughtons total. The green gained only 2 points and should look to improve next week against Kidderminster Victoria. as an unsatisfactory day’s cricket, with an exciting	Barnards Green ‘Singles’ opened their 2005 Division 5 campaign with a four wicket success over Alvechurch and Hopwood. New skipper Ratcliffe won an important toss and asked Alvechurch to make first use of a damp wicket. This decision was vindicated as opening bowlers Hill and Spiers produced a miserly spell. Both took an early wicket as White snaffled two regulation caught behinds and Alvechurch ‘dug in’. Spiers 1 – 19 off eight was rested whilst Hill continued to beat the bat with some unplayable deliveries. He reeled his 12 straight off to finish with the figures 12–7-19-1 leaving Alvechurch 27 for 2 off 24. Sanders and Beavan maintained the strangle hold as two more wickets fell. This brought Moretow to the crease and he showed some much needed attacking intent. This brought opener Lea out his shell and the pair brought the hundred up in the 39^th over until Beavan (2-22) had Lea caught behind for 42. Moretow took a liking to Simon Clarke and bludgeoned four mighty sixes before Sanders (2-22) had him bowled for 49. The Alvechurch total of 147 never looked enough. The ‘Singles’ response was one of dogged defence as Alvechurch’s bowlers extracted the venom as earlier. Freeman (14) and Lewis (20) crawled to 30 of fifteen overs until Lewis was bowled by change bowler Clifford, Freeman suffered the same fate when Morrison just clipped the off bail. All of the batters were getting in and starting to look comfortable but then contrived to get themselves out. Curtis (15) shouldered arms to straight one, Brewer (19) lobbed one to slip. All the while the run rate was creeping upwards. Skipper Ratcliffe took control smashing the ball around for a rapid 19 until he and Beavan both perished sweeping across the line. With 48 needed off 12 overs the game could have gone either way but the belligerent Dave White swatted 18 off one over to wrestle the tie back in the Green’s favour. The wise head of Chris Hill stroked the ball to all parts as the Green raced to their victory target with five overs to spare and secure the first win of the season. Morrison and Clifford both finished with three wickets but to no avail.