Braintree’s First Eleven welcomed Clacton to St Peter’s Road, still in searching for their first win of the season. Players and Officials (including Louis) arrived well before the allotted start time, running the gauntlet of the demonstration outside Causeway House and the heavy Police presence. Mitch Atkins also made it on time after ensuring that the Walker’s cats were well fed.
The Dolphin’s team sheet showed four changes to that of the previous week’s narrow defeat. Dan Garner, Geoff Eveling, Joe Osbourne and Karl Parker replaced the Yorkshire duo of Walker and Whiteoak, Newman and Gowers.
Captain Hinks won the toss and elected to bat first on a strip that had been well used and which “Gardener” Foyster had prepared especially with Braintree’s predominately spin attack in mind. The Dolphin’s didn’t get off to a very good start though as Matt Renvoize edged Pitts straight to O’Brien in the slips without troubling the scorers and then Chris Leech found his stumps dismantled by an excellent delivery from Kirk, having scored just 4.
Dan Garner joined Chris Hinks at the crease and the pair steadied the ship, with “Rig” ensuring that his skipper had the bulk of the strike in a third wicket stand of 65 runs. Eventually after scoring 12, Garner was deceived by the spin of Shahab and presented Pitts with a catch. Hinksy was timing the ball well and reached his half century by despatching Shahab a long way out of the ground. Matt Childs struggled though and was adjudged LBW off the bowling of Wickramasinghe for 4. At this stage Braintree found themselves having scored 103 for the loss of 4 wickets.
However, with the “Hairy Fruit” Mitch Atkins joining his Captain in the middle, runs started to flow freely. Clacton’s Skipper Tom Sinclair rotated his bowlers to put a stop to the boundaries but to no avail as the pair of Dolphin’s peppered the ropes with regularity. Atkins wasn’t hanging about as he reached his half century off just 26 balls and included 4 sixes that put both those living in the flats or the Police in the Council Car Park at risk. Mitch moved onto 62 with 3 more fours before he sportingly gave his fellow countryman, Robinson a catch in the deep. The pair had put on 96 runs in less than 40 minutes.
Chris Hinks then went on to create a personal record for himself as he flicked the ball off his pads to achieve his first ever century for any club and in any form of cricket. Unfortunately, having scored one more boundary lost his wicket as O’Brien took a decent catch off the bowling of Robinson. His innings contained 14 fours and 3 sixes off 136 balls and he was at the crease for 195 minutes.
Louis Cant and Bryn Powell came together and easily put on more runs, until the latter was caught by Pitts for a quick fire 25. Joe Osbourne, Geoff Eveling and Karl Parker added 2 runs each before losing their wickets as Braintree were all out for 277, with Louis Cant remaining unbeaten on 20.
In reply the seasiders lost an early wicket as Jatinder Singh, who was brought up the order as a pinch hitter swung and missed the first three deliveries received, he did the same to the fourth, this time though Mitch Atkins sent his stumps cartwheeling. Tom Sinclair and Imran Sheik then put on 65 runs for the second wicket, however they struggled to put away Geoff Eveling who had opened the bowling from the Rosemary Avenue End. Making good use of the wicket prepared for Braintree spinners, Geoff had conceded just 18 runs from his first six overs when he beat Sinclair (19) all ends up, sending the ball crashing into the stumps.
Sheik had taken a liking to the bowling from the Causeway House End and moved onto 50 with his 11th boundary, however he became Eveling’s second victim as he was drawn out of his ground and Powell gleefully removed the bails after a smart piece of work. Eveling completed his days work of taking the wickets of Clacton’s three most dangerous batsmen by having Nathan Robinson (18) caught behind. The Braintree veteran’s figures of 3 for 31 off his allotted 10 overs had stalled the opposition.
Matt O’Brien and Brad Pitts looked to push Clacton up to the required run rate off the bowling of Hinks, Childs and Cant. However, having scored 31, Pitts was beaten by a quicker ball from Cant and was bowled. Chris Leech was brought on from the end Eveling had success from and he was soon among the wickets as he tempted James Lee (21) into a big hit, but he got a leading edge and Chris Hinks took a comfortable catch. O’Brien was looking in good nick and scored runs freely as he moved on to 60, but Leech‘s spin beat him all ends up and he was bowled.
Hassan Bin Shahab was hitting out too in an attempt to put Clacton into a winning position however he was only successful in striking straight to Dan Garner on the ropes in front of The Mound, to provide Leech with a third wicket. Mitchel Atkins was brought back into the attack in the hope of beating the tail for pace. Atkins leaked some boundaries as the opposition edged to 278 and victory, but two quick straight deliveries saw both Lewis Kirk and Harry Spence lose their stumps and in doing so giving Braintree their first victory of the season by the slimmest margin of only 2 runs.
Atkins finished with figures of 3 for 54, whilst Leech ended with 3 for 42. As the Prosecco flowed in celebration, Karl Parker laughingly claimed it was the two runs he’d scored was the difference between winning and losing, nothing to do with Hink’s century.