On a bright and warm spring morning Braintree CC 1st XI met in the car park of St Peters Road ground nice and early to undertake the mammoth journey of an away day at Easton CC. Unfortunately traffic, traffic lights, general lateness and the overwhelming desire for a Tim Hortons breakfast wrap meant that most of the team didn’t arrive at the picturesque venue until 11:45 leaving little to prepare for the match ahead , but buoyed by winning his 2nd consecutive toss the skipper elected to bowl on what appeared to be a green seamer in the hopes that his team could get their heads on and start quickly.
The first over from each opening bowler went well with young Theo Sherry finding lateral movement and the wily Geoff “El Hefe” Eveling working his magic from the other end. It wasn’t long before “G-Money” Eveling managed to get one of the opening batters to bite on the lure and chip one in the air towards the closely guarded extra cover region. The ball went up and so did the hopes of Braintree but an uncharacteristic loud call of “Joes” went up from shortish cover despite the ball looping almost directly into the ample bread basket of the former skipper Hinks at wide mid-off. The opportunity was spurned in a moment of horrific irony, as Joe had claimed a mere half an hour previously that over the shoulder catch drills are a waste of the precious little warm-up time Braintree had as “they never happen in a game”. Oh dear Joe!
Still, Eveling with ball in hand and Eastons opening batters playing their shots hopes were still high and a few overs later Sherry made the breakthrough hanging a full ball just outside off for Lavergne to have a nibble at with Renvoize dutifully taking a solid catch with the gloves to claim his 2nd in 2 weeks. The next few overs saw Donsworth and Mannix (who may or may not be an overseas, even he didn’t know, only that he is in fact Australian) build a nice partnership and start to score runs freely. A double bowling change for overs 12 and 13 brought Hinks and Poole into the attack (respectively). Grace looked assured with a smooth, flowing run up and action that was reminiscent of her form in the Div 2 title winning season stemming the flow of runs and consistently targeting the stumps. From the other end Hinks was probing and looked dangerous but the batsmen again settled and started to find the boundary from both ends.
Just shy of the drinks break, it was time for the hero of the previous week against Abberton to see if he could repeat the feat and become Braintree’s anointed partnership breaker. Adcock and Hinks bowled tidily and a few overs after the drinks break Adcock managed to break the partnership. This demonstrated enormous courage and bravery considering he had narrowly escaped a vicious mauling by running away, falling over then scrambling under the fence to get away from a horse that was in reality merely looking in his general direction from about 100m away.
With all the hard work done it was prime time for the skipper to bring himself on for however many overs it took to buy himself a few wickets. His first delivery went for 12 as Donsworth had correctly evaluated his bowling as tripe. The next ball, miraculously seemed to hit a divot and divert to the outer edge of booming drive looping to new comer M Rake who took an assured catch. That was the end of the centurions 116 run knock (78 of which came in boundaries) at the third time of asking having also been dropped by Joe Osborne and on 99. From that point on Walker continued to bowl himself relying on Eastons charitable donations of wickets at regular intervals and the odd generous on field umpire ruling. He was even on a hat-trick at one stage, the only explanation being Eastons No7 mistaking him for a make a wish project and kicking one off middle first ball. At the other end Hinks went wicketless in 2nd spell and Eveling brought about the end of the Easton innings with 1.2 overs remaining leaving Braintree with a hefty 273 to win.

In response, Renvoize started nicely findng a few boundaries and Hinks had clearly decided the best way to attain the mammoth 273 needed was to use the toe of bat or swipe and miss as often as possible. With the bulk of the runs coming from one end Renvoize looked to keep the boundaries flowing and played a lovely leg clip that would have surely raced to the rope but unfortunately had played down the wrong line and saw his middle stump knocked back.
Just 6 balls later Adcock succumbed to the left arm opener Kiddys confusing angle of attack and nicked one to the wide slip.
This brought Powell to the crease, the grinder of the previous week scoring at a SR of 50 to surely steady the ship and repeat the previous weeks performance, however the opposite occurred and became another Kiddy victim having tried to achieve the never been done before feat of actually hitting every delivery faced for 12. This complete lack of common sense and cricketing nous lasted a mere 11 balls and ironically ended in lower strike rate than the previous week.
With that example of what not to do, Captain Fantastic strode to the crease. He immediately looked calm and composed guiding 2 of first 5 balls for low risk 4’s. Regrettably this calmness wasn’t contagious to Hinks was dismissed bowled 3 overs later for a run a ball 30 having used his entire bat including the handle.
The arrival of Garner provided a steady partner for Captain Walker to bat with. Garner looking good played some gloriously timed shots (like the shot of the day check drive 6 back over the bowlers head) and was even looking for quick singles only to be turned down by the skipper in fears he may be found to be slower than Garner. The pair lasted 10 overs getting Braintree past 100 and the drinks break but the hard work was undone when Wright smuggled one past the bat to wrap Garner on the pads straight enough for the umpire to give.
Joe Osbourne had had a mixed day out in deepest Suffolk so far and hopes were high that he and the captain could guide Braintree to a statement run chase. Things started well with Osbourne rotating strike and hitting the bad ball to the fence. However, in the 32rd over the boundaries began to dry up and Osbourne started to play shots akin to those seen around the greens at Augusta National a few weeks before. Although the scoreboard was still ticking along, Osbourne was getting frustrated the bat gifted to him from WG Grace wasn’t going the distance and eventually dollied a catch back to bowler Mitchell who made no mistake.
The Poole/Walker combo looked good with singles coming freely but the skipper visibly tired from earning his baggy decided it was go time to try achieve an incredibly rare “double baggy game” but alas he too was dismissed C&B by centurion Donsworth. He batted very well for the second week in a row to score consecutive 50’s leaving Braintree firmly believing that the illusive 100 is surely not far away.
Rake and Poole batted well and really took the game to Eastons for 5 overs trying to keep the required rate achievable but it was always a tall order. Poole tried to use her T20 experience and implemented some mind games shifting around in the crease to access better scoring areas. For some reason the bowler took umbrage with the batter trying to score runs and bailed out of 2 consecutive deliveries because she had moved (games gone!) before on the third attempt throwing down a wide one which Poole had charged for the keeper to take a regulation stumping.
On a warm spring evening it was the pleasure of all to witness “Caribbean Geoff” donning his signature wide brim a determined Eveling marched to the wicket to either win the game or make sure max points weren’t achieved by the home side. Some good shots and couple of boundaries saw him successful in his task.
Rake had given it his all and had been trying to push for the win as much as possible but a boundryless over in the 44th meant that maximums were needed in the last to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The new signing tried his best but could only muster an ariel shot back to the bowler to bring Sherry to the crease (the only member of the team to be dismissed for a hat-trick on his own).
Sherry nonchalantly stroked his first ball for a single down the ground to take off not only his gloves but his pads and helmet too while leaning on his bat at the non-strikers end for the remaining 4 balls of the innings. Everyone had expected an uneventful last few balls evaporating into the humid evening but Eveling had other ideas, with 3 balls left he swung a mighty heave that would have felled the thickest and oldest of oak trees but only catching the toe and looping into the air almost directly at the man in the field. Be it surprise at the tactic or the fielder being far too polite to accept such a generous gift of an opportunity to win the game in such easy fashion either way the ball made its way to ground and over the rope for 4 leaving Eveling to dot the penultimate ball and push a single for the last.
Braintree take their 2nd loss in 2 but some promising shoots of good cricket from most and form from their new skipper ensures hope pf the first victory will not be far away.
All fined £3 to ensure we arrived back in Braintree before Sunday and Joe DOD for the only time he spoke all day was to claim a catch that clearly wasn’t his and then dropping it