A humid afternoon in Filton saw Grendel batting first, with the ball nipping around in the sultry conditions.
Early wickets for Daniel Shearn and Stuart Green saw the hosts reduced to 26–2 a few overs in, but the third wicket pair of Laurie Coventry (33) and Richard Birtwistle (37) steadied things with a useful stand of 53.
The mid-innings period saw the visitors claim regular wickets, with Mark Robinson (3–38) and James Sackett (2–22) causing some problems for Grendel’s batsmen. A useful forty from Ansar kept the scoreboard ticking over though, and some lusty hitting late-on from Tony Pinder meant 173 runs had been amassed by the time Green (3–27) claimed the final Grendel man.
After tea, the Methodists started their run-chase slowly, but gradually built momentum throughout their innings – Robinson and Alex Nash taking the Norton side from 33–2 in the fourteenth over to a healthy 122–3 after twenty-seven, before Nash (38) became the first of five wickets for Grendel’s James Neville. Robinson continued on, assisted by the Meths’ middle-order, to get the side to within ten runs of victory before he eventually fell for a career-best 62, leaving John Baker to hit the winning boundary with two overs and three wickets to spare.
Daniel Shearn