Hat-trick of wins for Bradninch Cricket Club (From This is The West Country)

Hat-trick of wins for Bradninch Cricket Club

4:10pm Thursday 24th May 2012 in Sport

BRADNINCH had to dig deep to bag a third straight Francis Clarke Devon League win with Torquay the latest side to come a cropper against Gary Chappell’s team.

Quite how the team won having bowled 35 — yes, 35 wides — is something many Kensham Park followers are probably still asking now.

The game at Kensham Park, with the players sporting black arm bands in honour of recently departed Ken ‘Joe’ Salter, was not without controversy and quite what Joe would have made of it all – goodness knows! The record books will show that Bradninch were victorious by a margin of eight runs in a game that could have gone against them on a number of occasions.

It had all started so well with the in-form Ross Acton and Tim Piper, easing the side through 50 without loss. However, then came a collapse as both openers, Acton (34) and Piper (19), James Street (5), Matt Golding (0), and skipper Gary Chappell all went as 50-0 became 70- 5.

But Bradninch rallied with Paul Tweddle (43) and Will Squire (26) as they took their side to 151-7.

Bradninch were finally bowled out for 166.

Torquay were unable to get going in reply and lost an early wicket thanks to a quite stunning piece of fielding by young Matt Golding who swooped at cover point to hit the single stump in his vision to run out one of the Torquay openers.

Bradninch’s turn in the field had all started so badly with Dan Milligan bowling an 11-ball opening over and from there the die was cast with regular wides at both ends of the grounds. However, to Milligan’s credit after being taken off just three overs into the reply, he was to come back and bag the wickets that pushed Bradninch towards the winning line.

Torquay pushed along and came within eight runs of winning before Chappell held a catch off the bowling of Will Squire to give Bradninch victory.

Milligan closed with 3-35 and Chappell’s two overs ended with figures of 2-25, while Squire took 2- 30.