Victory for Broadstairs Cricket Club 1st XI team away to Harvel

Broadstairs Cricket Club

Broadstairs travelled to Harvel with the memory of the home fixture still fresh in the players’ minds; a match that was heading towards a convincing victory until an early downpour brought proceedings to a premature conclusion. Despite rain during the morning, the weather was set fair for the remainder of the day and the visitors were keen to build on last week’s emphatic win with another eighteen points.

Losing the toss and being invited to bat first on a sticky surface, Broadstairs built a solid platform with openers Alex Hogben (21) and Nathan Fox (57) leading the way, setting a scoring pace of more than 4 per over that was sustained throughout the innings. Additional runs from Elliot Fox (33), Callum Morgan (31*), Jamie Dewell (30) and Harry Carter (30) coupled with 31 extras contributed to a final score of 256-9, a total that the visitors felt confident they could defend with their balanced mix of pace, spin and swing bowling.

Harvel, however, offered-up some stiff resistance, especially early in the innings when they raced to 76-0 within the 12th over.  They continued their pace of scoring despite the loss of their first two wickets, courtesy of Bradley Ellison (2-48 off 10 overs) and at 122-2 with still 30 overs remaining, the game was quite delicately poised.

However, the introduction of Elliot Fox (3-23 off 10 overs) and Chris Kidd (3-20 off 10 overs) restored some much-needed control; the next 10 overs yielded just 14 runs and included the key dismissal of opener Paterson. Despite this, there was still a late flurry from the Harvel tail who put on 78 runs for the last four wickets. Eventually, however, the hosts succumbed in the 45th over with Callum Morgan (2-29 off 4.2 overs) claiming the final wicket, leaving Harvel on 214, 43 runs short of the target.

With high-flyers Dartford and Old Wilsonians also winning this weekend, this hard-earned victory proved crucial for Broadstairs’ to maintain their challenge for one of the promotion places. Next week Broadstairs host Ashford CC in another must-win match.