The Midweek XI began their Evening League Season with a thumping home win against Birdlip and Brimpsfield. Fielding a strong team this Division Two game was rather one-sided as Westbury put in a promising display to go straight to the top of the league.
After stand-in skipper Dan Hockaday won the toss and elected to bat, Neil Wyman was in typical Neil Wyman form and smashed an impressive 6 off the 2nd ball and followed that up with several bludgeoning boundaries before playing round a rare-straight delivery for 28 before club Chairman Rich Edginton was dismissed in similar fashion. That brought young Ross Martin to the crease and despite looking shaky and struggling to adjust to the pace of the pitch and bowling began playing some fluent strokes and along with Chris Wayman - a new addition to the club - began finding the boundaries and gaps with regularity. Against some abject bowling the 2 batsmen began launching massive shots onto the rugby field including four 6s in a row from Martin once Wayman had been caught in the deep for 45 which involved a lot of clever running and appreciation of gaps in the field. As balls began flying out of the ground and over the boundary rope Martin moved onto 94 before edging to fly slip in the final over. He smashed four 4s and seven 6s in a hugely entertaining 94 off 44 balls. Westbury reached an impressive 182 for 4 off 20 overs.
Greg Artus and Ed Edginton then responded with some quick bowling and the latter claimed a superb 4-29 off his 4 overs after beginning with 2 beamers. One of the wickets was indebted to a superb catch by Wayman at deep midwicket. Artus' contribution kept the score down after bowling 4 overs for just 11 runs as the Birdlip batsmen were looking to push the score on. Their desire to score quick runs then resulted in a quick flurry of wickets, a run out after good work from Tom Burrows and Ross Martin who bowled with pace and accuracy to concede just 15 runs from his 4 overs and 2 wickets from Burrows and Hockaday left Birdlip stranded on 127-7 off 20 overs.
Another impressive victory to start the season from Westbury and things look promising for the season. Strong performances in the field from Rob Hale, Tony Campbell and Tim Burrows sets us apart from other opposition.
The midweek XI take on Painswick next week.
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