Braintree’s First Eleven made the long trip to Mildenhall for the penultimate game of a season that is best forgotten. The team that made the trip showed numerous changes to that of the previous week, with the Ainsley brothers becoming the 33rd and 34th players to represent the Ones this year. Chris Walker was given the captains role and after declining the offer of a shortened game won the toss and elected to bat first.
Chris Hinks and Matt Renvoize opened the batting and got the Dolphins off to a good start putting on 41 runs inside 8 overs. However, having scored 10, Renvoize was given out stumped off a wide, although he insisted, he had regained his ground before the bails were removed. Joe Osbourne faced just 2 deliveries before the umpires decided he should make the long walk back to the pavilion. Was he bowled, stumped or caught behind nobody knows, from 100 yards away the scorers decided upon a catch so that is what the records will show!
Bryn Powell joined Hinks at the crease and the pair played sensibly until the latter had a rush of blood to the head and was caught in the deep for 25 runs. Whatever Hinksy said to Mitch Atkins on his walk to the wicket, surely wasn’t to try and put the first ball you receive into the river. The Kiwi Fruit attempted to despatch his first delivery out of the ground and only succeeded in presenting the fielder at mid-wicket with a simple catch.
Rory Ciccarelli-Ainsley, who had the shortest trip of anybody to play, quickly got off the mark with a shot to the ropes. Two more boundaries followed before he found his stumps dismantled with 16 runs to his name. Himesh Patel, played and missed a number of deliveries, (or did he leave the ball on purpose?) Whatever the case, the lumberjack also found the ropes on three occasions before he missed a straight one having scored 19.
Meanwhile, having kept his team-mates waiting earlier whilst he watched Pokermon, Bryn Powell ensured his own score ticked slowly along. However, having scored 42 off 82 balls he edged a delivery into the wicket keeper’s gloves. Captain for the day, Chris Walker also took his time pushing singles on the odd occasion before taking a liking to one delivery and duly despatched it well over the boundary. Unfortunately, when on 11, he played on. Toby Adcock and Karl Parker both scored 7, before they were out LBW and bowled respectively. Joel Ainsley was not out 0 as the Dolphins lost all their wickets with 169 runs on the board.
In reply, Mildenhall’s openers Peter Worthington and Connor Cobbald showed why they have scored the best part of 1500 runs between them this season, from the start. They raced to 100 off 84 balls in well under an hour. Captain Walker alternated 7 different bowlers in an attempt to stem the flow of runs to no avail as the home side reached the target of 170 without loss, with 24 overs to spare. Worthington miss counted the runs required for victory as he finished agonisingly one run short of his fifth century of the season, whilst Cobbald finished on 49*.
Despite finishing second for the 19th time this season, spirits are still high and the Ones are looking forward to local derbies against Haverhill, Dunmow, Kelvedon and Witham again next season. Before then, there is the opportunity of securing a second win next Saturday and more importantly the “Slip and Slide” that will follow.