By Andy Fenton

BARRY Wanderers Cricket Club hosted Cefn Fforest & Maesycwmmer on Saturday at Hayes Point in Division 8 of the South East Wales Cricket League.

After a wet morning, what followed was a glorious afternoon full of entertaining cricket played in the best of spirits.

With skipper George Allen taking his troops in to the field, it was Cefn Fforest & Maesycwmmer to open the batting with the impressive Butler and Evans.

For the Wanderers, Venkat Siddu and Ram Guni opened the attack.

The former was his usual accurate self, bowling a superb line and length.

Ram soon found his rhythm but a knee injury curtailed his fruitless spell.

With Luke Grant and Neil Blundell the change bowlers, it was Grant who clean bowled Butler for 31.

Indeed all bar one for wickets to fall were bowled demonstrating that if you bowl straight, you take wickets.

At drinks, Cefn Fforest & Maesycwmmer had amassed 103 for 1 off 20 overs and were set for a big total.

Thankfully for the home side this wasn’t going to be the case.

A fine bowling performance from the Wanderers in the second half of the innings forced wickets to fall regularly restricting Cefn Fforest & Maesycwmmer to 203 all out off 39.2 overs.

Grant went on to take three more wickets and finished with career best figures of 4 for 36 off 7.2 overs.

He also took a magnificent catch in the deep.

There were also contributions from Tim Bowker (two wickets for 29), Himath Singh (1 for 25) and Andy Fenton (2-15) at the death.

After a tea break, it was down to the regular opening partnership of Blundell and Sooty Coleman to get the Wanderers under way.

The ball was struck to all parts of the ground with an array of attacking shots from the pair.

A fabulous opening partnership of 140 came to an end in the 22nd over with Blundell out stumped for an excellent 73.

A partnership of 23 between Ram and Sooty was broken when Ram was bowled for 16.

Sooty followed soon after for a classy 62.

The Wanderers innings started to wobble a bit when Sathya Medam was out stumped for 1.

Skipper Allen had other ideas though and blasted 16 runs in no time at all.

It was left to Fenton and Singh to steer the ship home with the Wanderers running out comfortable winners by five wickets in the 37th over.

Look at www.barrywanderers.play-cricket.com/website/results/4885831 for more information.

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Anyone with an interest in playing cricket for a friendly, social club should contact them at www.barrywanderers.play-cricket.com/Aboutus.