BARNARDS Green visited Droitwich in the WCL division one on Bank Holiday Monday and the game got off to a damp start as pitch preparations were hampered by the frequent rain showers.

DROITWICH SPA V BARNARDS GREEN

Barnards Green won the toss, and invited the home team to make first use of the damp wicket, that looked as if it would be tricky to bat on.

This proved to be the case as Droitwich lost their first three wickets for only 25 runs by the ninth over. Two of them taken, by Tim Williams, and the other by fellow opening bowler Kev Downes.

The loss of these quick wickets brought together P Bryan and overseas player D Gariff, who dug in to rescue the innings with dogged determination, raising the score to 115 by over 32 when Gariff, on 28, was caught by Chris Smedley off the bowling of Lewis Hooper, on debut, in the first team.

Two further wickets fell quickly, one to Chris Smedley the other a run out to a smart piece of fielding by Phil Harris, leaving Droitwich Spa on 134-6 in over 37 of the 49 allocated.

Things looked promising for the Green at that juncture, but S Walsh joined P Bryan, still there on 55no, who together launched an attack on the bowling taking the score quickly onto 179 before Bryan was out to a good catch by Phil Harris off the second spell of pace bowling by Kev Downes.

S Walsh was joined by G Thomas and they continued to attack until by the close of their innings, Droitwich had amassed 229-8.

The Barnards Green reply can only be described as disappointing, to say the least, as they slumped to 5-34 in their opening 13 overs.

A Van Vuuran from South Africa doing the main damage, with 3-17 in seven overs.

Liam Paddock and Phil Harris found themselves together and they took charge. They took the score to 102 by over 29, building a partnership of 68 valuable runs, before Paddock was run-out trying for an unsafe second run.

Phil Harris (29) was next to go, leaving Paul Drinkwater (15), Tim Williams (9) and the tail to try and hold out, but the task was too great against the high quality spin of D Gariff, who finished with 4-30 to leave Barnards Green on a losing score of 141 all out for the second time this Bank Holiday weekend.

Droitwich Spa picked-up 24 points and Barnards Green three points which keeps them in ninth position out of 12 in the league table.