Bristol and District League
(Senior Division)
Old Down 1sts v Nailsea 1sts

WHILE miserable conditions made life difficult in the early part of the game, both sides helped by the umpires, battled on through light drizzle and bad light to make an exciting match out of a wintry prospect.
Batting first, Old Down openers, George Williams (12) and Jordan Rouse (58) displayed a good range of attacking shots, although the departure of the former brought seventeen year old newcomer, Ben Hopkins, to the crease, where he showed his promise in collecting a stylish 23 runs.
Rouse’s excellent knock ended, when the bowler deflected a return shot onto the wicket, running out the unlucky opener.
Mike Rowen relieved of the burden of captaincy, made a positive impact with the bat, amassing 70 runs mostly in the company of Chris Rovery, whose mature 44 helped ease Old Down to a first innings total of 256-8, with Nailsea's bowling seeing  Morris take 2-49, Reddy 2-59 and Taylor 3-36.
Nailsea’s reply was a steady accumulation while only losing one early wicket, which went to veteran Ian Maunder (1-38) whose sharp caught and bowled was scooped up inches from the ground.
While Davis hit an excellent 108 and Moss a creditable 51, nobody else from their team got beyond single figures, as Nailsea struggled to 200-9 at the end. of their innings.
Old Down’s secret weapon, however, was the skill of spin twins Jordan Rouse, who finished with 3-37 and Raj Verma, whose figures were very impressive as he took 5-28 in his spell.
Rouse’s classy off-spin was excellent, but the gentle varieties of Verma had Nailsea tied in knots right to the bitter end, but the unlucky home team were unable to obtain one final wicket that would have finished off the visiting side.

Coalpit Heath 2nds v Old Down 2nds
WHILE Old Down struggled to find regular players who were available to take to the crease for the match, skipper Reg Purchase earned his stripes by cobbling together a raft of retired players with the rest from the youth teams in order to complete this fixture.
And they all went at it with a will, but were unable to assemble a convincing score when asked to bat first.
Only veteran Andy Kitchen, with 32, made it into double figures for Old Down, so that their hosts only faced 105 at the turnaround.
Coalpit’s bowlers, Long (2-34), Williams (2- 18) and Dougan (1-8) all had good returns, but it was McIlraith (5-5) who did the real damage.
Not to be outdone, Old Down bowled very well. Under-14 player Josh Little fielded and bowled excellently and Simon Higgs picked-up a useful 1-22, but it was Dave Lippiatt whose brilliant bowling produced the astonishing figures of 7- 14, as Coalpit Heath struggled towards their total. Eventually McIlraith, Heath’s top scorer with 17, helped take them to 106-8 and victory.