For the first time in over a decade Braintree were cake to field a Saturday 3rd team who travelled to a neutral venue to take on Witham 4’s
After winning the toss and looking at conditions Braintree decided to bowl first. Macauley Waite and Theo Sherry provided a powerful opening strike pair with Sherry taking his first ever adult wicket by having an opener caught behind.
The batsmen continued to struggle against accurate bowling and exceptional fielding, with Macauley finding his rhythm as he ripped through the middle order, ending with figures from his 8 overs of 4-19 including 3 cleaned bowled.
Whilst Sherry had a league mandated break Leigh Garner took over and bowled a miserly spell of 0-22 off his 8 overs - on another day his efforts would’ve been rewarded with wickets.
Calley Foyster bamboozled the Witham team with her accurate lines and picked up 3 useful wickets.
Unfortunately, with Witham at 79-9 Waite suffered an injury in the field leaving Braintree with only 9 players. The bowling was rotated at this point, with Hugo Adam’s getting his first taste of bowling, Adam Weston keeping it tight and Ian Johnston bringing himself on to bowl some variation.
With the gaps in the field the final wicket stand added a very useful 40 runs before Foyster finished the innings.
Despite the lack of fielders the standards remained high and there were 2 run outs to show for our efforts - including one exceptional direct hit from Westall.
Set a challenging 122 to win on a deteriorating pitch pockmarked with divots from our own bowling efforts and with only 9 batters unfortunately Braintree fell well short, losing wickets regularly to tight and accurate bowling from the opposition.
Credit has to go to Sherry and Adams however who batter patiently at the end to extend the game - Adams innings lasting 23 balls and Sherry remaining unbeaten on 3 off 44 balls.
A great and enthusiastic performance in spite of the result