Shepherd Neame Essex League Premier Division
South Woodford 128
Chelmsford 130-5
Chelmsford won by five wickets
AFTER losing their last two games Chelmsford got back on track with a hard fought win in a rain-affected match at South Woodford.
The home team chose to bat on winning the toss, but were stunned to lose county player Nick Browne to the second ball of the match having been induced by Mark Drain to give an easy catch to Nick Prowting at mid-off. Rain then intervened after three overs and 70 minutes play was lost.
South Woodford progressed to 60-3 at lunch having lost a further wicket to Drain and one to leg-spinner Tom Craddock as rain again began to fall.
The restart was delayed by a further 25 minutes, but then Craddock steadily worked his way through South Woodford's batting despite some dogged resistance from Gymer (42) and Sargent (31) to dismiss the home side for 128 in 41.4 overs. Craddock ended with excellent figures of 7-33.
Recognising that there had not been many high scores on South Woodford's pitch recently, Chelmsford's batsmen knew that they would have to work hard for their runs. With a minimum of 51 overs available, there was sufficient time for a steady approach though assuming there were no further rain stoppages.
After 10 overs the score was 10 without loss but three wickets were lost in the next five overs to leave Chelmsford wobbling on 28-3. Paul Jones joined opener Adil Dewan who had assumed the anchor role and these two grafted hard over the next 20 overs to move the score on to 72 before Jones (15) was dismissed.
This brought Matt Thurston to the wicket who despite still feeling his way back from injury, played positively from the start. His first seven overs at the crease produced 35 runs before Dewan was out for 45 vital runs grafted from 118 balls.
The last 20 runs were plundered in just 10 balls with James Clifford (13no) hitting three boundaries in four balls to claim the win. Thurston finished 34 not out scored at better than a run a ball.
With this victory Chelmsford move back to fourth in the Premier Division and close the gap to leaders Wanstead, who tasted defeat for the first time this season at the hands of Chingford who share second place with Brentwood just one point behind the leaders.
Chelmsford trail these two by 10 points, and will hope to maintain momentum from this victory to challenge the top three.
