Bristol and District Association 14th Division

Thornbury 4ths 149-8 (M Syed 45no) Bristol West Indian Phoenix 150-2 (20 overs) (B Gayle 79no) Bristol West Indians win by eight wickets

A sobering defeat after a winning start to the season as Thornbury fourths came up against a strong Bristol West Indians team.

Losing early wickets in the face of some predictably quick bowling Thorns were reduced to 36-4 and looking shaky such that making 100 was in doubt. However after some steady work by Sunil Reddy (13) and Sanat Nagaraju (16) the score built modestly but still anything over 100 was still challenging.

Little did they know we had retained our firepower! In comes Mubashar Syed and firstly with son Ahmed (16) and then the aggressive James Mooney (18no), he accelerated into the last 10 overs to reach a respectable 149 including 15 of the last over.

Cheered by a better than expected total and an excellent tea, we set about getting the early wickets needed. However the Windies had two strong openers willing to take on the bowling straight away and although a difficult chance was dropped they moved quickly to 53 in 8 overs before finally capturing a wicket. B Gayle carried on like his namesake and despite tidy bowling he used the short boundary on one side to good effect. Heads didn’t drop and Sunil , Derek Davis and Mubashar all put some pressure to get him out knowing if we could we still had runs to play with.

It wasn’t to be unfortunately and despite collecting one more wicket Gayle carried on to end 79 not out without offering any real chances and they reached the target in 20 overs.