Youngsters impress but Threes fall short in season opener

Sarisbury 4th XI v Bramshaw 3rd XI, Match Report by Tom Mason

A youthful third team travelled to Sarisbury yesterday for their first game of the new season.

After winning the toss, we decided to bowl first.

It was a tough start with the home side racing to 84-1 off ten.

However, Ritesh Ramachandra (1-49) and Joe McNeilly (3-40) put a break on the scoring and picked up some useful wickets to check the hosts progress as they reached 146-3 just before drinks.

After the interval, wickets continued to come regularly with the youngsters all chipping in, as well as Ben Lindsay (1-16) who kept things very tight towards the end.

With wickets continuing to fall, the two retired batters came back in, but we managed to pick up the final two wickets quickly to see Sarisbury bowled out for 232.

Especially mention to everyone in the field but particularly to all the youngsters who had massive contributions with wickets and catches in which for some of them were their first adult games.

After tea, Joe McNeilly (31) and Lindsay (6) opened up.

With very tight lines being bowled, it was tricky for the whole of the top order as we were reduced to 57-5 before drinks.

Kingsley Maddison (16) stuck around for a while to frustrate the hosts in his first senior game before Evan Symonds (10) hit his first adult six as we were dismissed just below 100.

Despite the result not going our way, there were some very positive signs in there to build on for the rest of pre-season and beyond.

See the full scorecard here – https://bramshaw.play-cricket.com/website/results/6098480