On a warm yet blustery day at Woodlands, captain Jimmy Biggs correctly called heads and decided to have a bat first on a pitch that up until 30 mins before kick-off there had been a football game taking place on the outfield.

As is becoming customary, James Laud started well and his partner Chris Logan looked to take advantage of the powerplay with early aggression. With City CC opening with the spin of Danyaal Malik from one end, it showed that pace off was a ploy for the opposition, with some of their bowlers extracting big turn from the pitch. Logan was the first of Malik’s 5 wickets, bowled for 11. David Platt joined Laud at the crease and between them they looked to steady things. Unfortunately, Platt was only able to add 8 runs before being bowled by Malik. Laud then had a flurry of batting partners who came and went, with Matt Davies (5), James Biggs (0), Mo Azhar (12), Oscar Jackon (13) and Laud Snr (0) all coming and going before James fell for 46, again to the bowling of Malik. Sadly for Burghley the tail did not wag, and we were bowled out for 150 from 36.1 overs.

Logan and James Hanna took the new ball for the Bear and created early chances. Hanna should’ve claimed Mohammed Saif in his first over, only for Jimmy Biggs to drop a simple chance. This proved costly as Saif finished the game on 91*! However, Hanna did trap Malik LBW in his second over before sadly his line and length began to err. Logan was causing issues at the other end, and had one put down himself in the slips. Biggs brought himself on to replace Hanna, taking 2/15 from 4 overs, before it became spin at both ends with Mo Azhar replacing Logan and Will Portlock replacing Biggs. Sadly by now the race had mostly been run, and the earlier drops proved costly. Following Portlock and Azhar were Oscar Jackson and Harry Armstrong, both of which, along with Portlock, showed promising signs of things to come for Burghley. City CC got over the line in 24.2 overs, taking victory by 7 wickets.

Next week we take on Barnack CC away. Please get your availability in on Pitchero.

This match was sponsored by Trust My Group.