Birmingham chartered surveyors Bigwood entered unusual territory, winning a cricket match 5-1 over solicitors Mills & Reeve.
This offbeat scoreline came as a result of the first bowl-out in the eight-year history of the Lord’s Taverners John Bright Trophy corporate cricket tournament.
Bigwood had scored 63/1 in only 6.3 overs thanks to some aggressive strokeplay by Mark Kenkre (33*) when a 20-minute downpour left the square at Britannic Park, Moseley, unplayable – match abandoned.
The resulting bowl-out was a classic demonstration of how difficult cricketers find bowling at stumps. Each player had three deliveries.
Out of 60 balls (both sides were a player short), no-one was on target more than once and just six were on target.
After a 1-1 half-time score, Bigwood loped their way to a 5-1 victory. Bowl-out king was their left-armer James Ironmonger, who was on target once and narrowly missed the stumps with his two other balls.
Other successes came from James Mattin, Mike Comley, Mark Kenkre and Peter Battersby with Duncan Askill on target for Mills & Reeve.
On Thursday a depleted No5 Chambers side with only eight players did well to restrict 2009 trophy winners Ernst & Young to a 38-run win.
There was some hard-hitting strokeplay by E&Y captain Simon Bird (35 rtd) and some fine shot timing by his James Litherland (30) while Neil Chawla (41*) impressed during his innings for the barristers.
The week also saw GVA Grimley recorded their third successive win in the ‘social’ group beating solicitors Cobbetts by 71 runs. For the victors, Matt Greenaway continued his impressive bid for the trophy’s 2011 Course Cricketer Award.
He again showed his wicket-taking flair bringing the game to an abrupt close in his two-ball bowling spell that saw him clean-bowling Alan Mieklejohn (35), who before then had survived everything the main Grimley bowlers had to offer.
Earlier Greenaway was spotted impersonating a sightscreen by fielding almost directly behind the bowler’s arm. “It’s okay, he doesn’t move,” a team colleague assured the umpire. umpire. Well done Matt.
Week 8 Results
Monday June 13 – GVA Grimley 177/7 in 16 overs (L McKenna 35 rtd, A Ryall 29, N Cashmore 26, D Hampton 20, D Walker 3-24, M Gibson 2-12, W Lodder 1-16) Cobbetts 106 in 15.2 overs (A Meiklejohn 35, G Muth 16, K Blackburn 2-6, N Cashmore 2-9, P Sandhu 2-10, M Greenaway 1-1, T Price 1-10)
GVA Grimley beat Cobbetts by 71 runs
Tuesday June 14 – Ernst & Young 189/6 in 16 overs (S Bird 36 rtd, J Litherland 30, D Roen 26, A Wallis 2-26) No5 Chambers 151/6 (N Chawla 41*, D Roden 2-13, A Christoforou 1-3, S Bird 1-4, E Williams 1-10, S Millichap 1-11)
Ernst & Young won by 38 runs
