1st XI - Game 9 - Bristol 319-8, Frocester 148

An opening stand of 169 between James Bracey and Lisle Durrans, backed up by a clinical bowling performance, extended Bristol’s winning running and elevated them to within a couple of points of second place in the table.
Frocester came out swinging in pursuit of 320 to win and had 47 on the board by the end of the fifth over, in which Andy Solomons took 18 off Will Rudge, including two sixes. But after a timely maiden from Kieran Noema-Barnett, Rudge got his revenge off the first ball of his next over when Bracey took the first of three catches. By the time he completed his third 15 balls later, Frocester were reeling at 52-3. Noema-Barnett, finding sufficient movement to cause difficulties, then picked up a smart low caught-and-bowled to dismiss Tom Wand, and trapped Ross Martin LBW to finish with 3-34 off 8 overs.
From 67-5, Nick Trainor and Callum Gegg mounted a mini-recovery. Trainor counter-attacked to race to 30 off 15 balls – the unfortunate Ash Joyner bearing the brunt of this onslaught after starting well – and Gegg hit Noema-Barnett for a six and a four off consecutive balls. The advent of Tommy Probert extinguished any faint hopes Frocester might still have harboured of doing something remarkable. First Will Tavare held on to a catch at mid-wicket that seemed to take forever to arrive, to dismiss Gegg. Next over, Probert’s slower ball deceived Trainor and yorked him, and Probert then trapped Jack Cowles LBW first ball. The next delivery struck Richard Cave on the pads and elicited a confident appeal that must have been close to being upheld. Cave and Chad Trainor managed to collect a batting point and got within a whisker of a second, but Trainor junior hit a full toss from Neil Pollard to mid-on where Fin Trenouth took a good catch diving forward, and Louise Shaw snuck through Alex Russell’s defences to complete Bristol’s 6th win of the season.
Earlier Nick Trainor, on winning the toss, had surprised many by choosing to bowl, perhaps wary of the recent fragility of Frocester’s batting line-up. This suited Bristol down to the ground and the relentless Bracey was soon into unstoppable run-gathering mode. He was less expansive in the powerplay overs than usual, but was soon underway, piercing the off-side field with surgical precision and taking full toll of a loose Richard Cave over that included two no-balls. Bracey leg-glanced the first to the boundary, then deposited both free-hits over the top for four to bring up Bristol’s fifty in the tenth over.
Except for this boost to Bracey’s total, Durrans kept pace with his partner’s scoring rate in the first part of the partnership, picking up boundaries with graceful clips off his legs, drives through the off, and a rather ungainly hook.
The positive running was another feature of the partnership, and before you knew it, Bracey was homing in on another half-century that he appeared to have reached almost be stealth and completed with a very fine sweep for four off Chad Trainor. Durrans completed his fifty seven overs later with a clip into the leg-side and by this time, Bracey had accelerated away and was into the seventies.
The partnership was finally ended in the thirty-first over when Durrans mis-timed a forcing shot and was caught by Dan Whincup at short mid-wicket diving forward. This brought to the crease Will Young, who skilfully yielded as much of the strike as possible to Bracey, whilst also finding the boundary early in his innings with a perfectly timed glide backward of point.
Bracey completed his century with his 14th boundary, behind square on the off-side, off the hundredth ball he faced, then added fifty more in another 34 balls with seven further fours, his sweeping and reverse-sweeping, becoming more of a feature as the innings went on. He looked to be powering on towards a 200 and perhaps beyond when he just failed to clear the deep mid-wicket boundary, and, more significantly, Ross Martin, the fielder posted just inside it, who took a good overhead catch that he looked initially to have misjudged.
From 256-2 at Bracey’s dismissal, Bristol allowed themselves a mini-collapse to 284-6, but a fine cameo of 25 off 23 balls from Louie Shaw, including an astonishing reverse-pull for four off Cave in the final over, ensured they topped 300 and posted a total that was way beyond Frocester’s means.
Bracey now has 615 league runs at 88, well placed to top the 833 he amassed last season. Young has 444 at 49. Durrans is averaging 35, with clear water between him and the rest, and is the only man other than Bracey and Young to score a fifty in the league for the 1st XI this season.