Chris Booth century holds up Brockhampton in Division 1 Birmingham League at Walmley (From Hereford Times)

Chris Booth century holds up Brockhampton in Division 1 Birmingham League at Walmley

11:57am Thursday 4th August 2011 in Cricket

AFTER dominating much of the game, Brockhampton had to settle for a winning draw in Division 1 of the Birmingham League at Walmley.

The home side’s Chris Booth had made a century to rescue their innings and then lower-order batsman Greg Rickets marshalled the tail through the final overs.

Earlier, the Herefordshire side’s batsmen were back to their best form, batting consistently down the order to set the home side a stiff test when they closed their innings on 267-7.

Chris Boroughs, the one player to fail with the bat, made amends with the ball, reducing Walmley to 84-5 before the recovery.

Adam Hewlett (38) and Ben Stebbings (75) got the Brockhampton innings away to a sound start, and there were further contributions from Henry Langford (47), acting skipper Johnny Walker (29), Tom Austwick (18) and Chris Powell (26).

The win looked inevitable when Boroughs and Callum Stewart took out the top half, but Booth (106) received solid support from the lower order, especially Rickets (40no), and between them they held on despite Boroughs (5-50) coming back to take the ninth wicket.

Adam Hewlett (3-47) took the other wickets as Walmley finished on 247-9, 21 runs short of the win.

Eastnor slipped back into the Division 2 relegation places after they were beaten by 67 runs in a basment fixture with Stratford at Clenchers Mill Lane.

The young Warwickshire outfit applied themselves with the bat after Eastnor won the toss and elected to field.

Stratford kept wickets in hand in the first half of their innings and then doubled their score in the final 20 overs to set Eastnor a testing target of 205-6.

Shahid took an early wicket, but it was the introduction of spin which caused the batsmen most problems.

Jabran posed the greatest threat, finishing with 3-38 off his 17 overs.

The run-rate rocketed in the closing overs, especially after he had finished his spell.

Chasing 205 was never going to be easy, but the loss of two early wickets against a lively opening attack added to Eastnor’s problems. Faisal (16) and Atiq (18) flourished for a while before they lost their wickets to the Grundy brothers, Tom (2-36) and Jack (3-14).

Batting well, Clive Chadhani (43) gave Eastnor a glimmer of hope against the quick bowlers, but the introduction of Australian Peter Wilson's left-arm spin changed that. Wilson cleaned up with 4-14 off seven overs to dismiss Eastnor for 138 in 36.3 overs.