Game Three: Bristol 1st XI vs Bridgewater 1st XI, Away

Match report from legendary scorer, Keith Horsley

Bridgwater v Bristol, WEPL Premier 1, 20 May 2017
Bristol 215-8 (46.4 overs), Roderick 57, Ellison 49no, Williams 3-25, Singleton 3-25
Bridgwater 167 (34.4 overs), Lace 36, Bartlett 34, Ellison 5-21, Bracey 2-19, Hardwick 2-25
Bristol won by 36 runs (DLS method)

A remarkable, game of cricket, played predominantly under threatening clouds, ended beneath clear skies on the stroke of 8pm with Bristol recording their second successive league victory of the season. The game featured a fine all-round performance from Jack Ellison and turned on two surprising pieces of captaincy. Bridgwater’s skipper’s decision to persist with the expensive spin of Bartlett for a second and third over gave Bristol’s innings a much-needed shot in the arm; while James Bracey’s choice to have his first ever bowl in Premier 1 cricket rather than use either of Bristol’s two spinners was thoroughly vindicated by the result.

Chasing a revised target of 204 to win from 38 overs, Bridgwater lost Hallaran to the fifth ball of the innings, caught behind off Dan Jones, who was obtaining significant lift from the rain-freshened pitch. But Bartlett and Lace laid into the bowling of Jones and his opening partner Tommy Probert mercilessly, finding the boundary 7 times by either the aerial or the terrestrial route to rattle up 42 within four overs. The introduction of Hardwick into the attack, and the end of the truncated powerplay, slowed the scoring rate slightly. Hardwick picked up two wickets to keep Bristol in the hunt, nibbling one past Lace’s outside edge to bowl him for a 28-ball 36, and trapping Bartlett LBW as he ill-advisedly played back. But the home side appeared to be cruising at 114 for 3 from 21 overs, needing only another 90 from 17, when Hardwick and Jones completed their reduced 8-over allocations, Jones having beaten the bat countless times in his second spell.

It was at this point that Bracey passed the keeper’s pads and gloves to Will Tavare and came on to bowl his unorthodox medium pace. It proved to be an inspired decision as the next five overs (with Probert replacing Jones from the pavilion end) yielded just sixteen runs, and Tavare proved an able deputy with some deft one-handed takes as the ball nipped around. But it was wickets that Bristol needed if they were to have any chance of taking the winners’ points.

Jack Ellison had earlier been denied a half-century only by the weather gods as a downpour terminated Bristol’s innings to leave him one short of that landmark off just 39 balls. His last 29 runs came off a mere 13 balls as he peppered the leg-side boundary with four brutal sixes and as many fours. That it was very much Ellison’s day was clear when he struck with his second ball, Barrett skying a catch to Felix Ward in the covers. This triggered an extraordinary Bridgwater collapse: they lost their last seven wickets for 37 runs in 8.3 overs. Ellison took five of these, benefitting from two catches by Bracey (at midwicket) – the first, by all accounts, a very good one, the second more regulation - and two LBW decisions from umpire Sakhamuri. Bracey, at the other end, kept things tight and chipped in with two wickets of his own, including Williams who was unlucky to see the ball squeeze underneath his bat and roll on to the stumps, and the Bridgwater innings, and the match, ended with twenty balls of their reduced allocation unused.

Bristol’s innings, after they were put in to bat, had begun in unsettled weather and rain was already falling quite heavily when Bracey inside-edged on to his stumps off Williams. Will Tavare opened his account with two sumptuous boundaries, one off his legs and one through the covers, and Archie Fellowes had just stroked his first boundary through square leg when the rain became heavier and the umpires called a temporary halt to proceedings. After a 45-minute delay, the match was reduced to 48 overs per side. Tavare hit his first ball after the resumption to the straight boundary but thereafter dealt only in singles until he was dropped at mid-on on 18, and added only two more before hitting a return catch to Redrup. By this time Fellowes had also been dismissed, and Ward did not last long before skewing a non-descript shot to mid-wicket. But Roderick had been watchfully playing himself in and he was joined by Sillence as the introduction of Bartlett into the attack heralded a crucial phase of the Bristol innings. The next five overs of carnage yielded 53 runs (44 of them off Bartlett) including six sixes, two fours and, unforgivably for a slow bowler, two no-balls.

Roderick brought up his fifty with his fourth six, but he and Sillence departed in the two overs immediately following Bartlett’s belated removal from the attack. However, this brought in man-of-the-match Ellison, who, aided by some effective strike-rotation by Vir Lakhani, and some statistical assistance from Messrs Duckworth, Lewis and Stern, set a target that proved, in the end, to be beyond Bridgwater’s reach.