ANDREW REYNOLDS

BRAMHALL Cricket Club opened their 2018 season in positive fashion on Saturday.

Again generously sponsored for the year by Chrome Motors of Woodford, the Beavers opted to bowl on a dry looking wicket.

The Beavers saw two debutants take the field: left arm spinner Ryan Macciocchi, and Australian overseas Liam Banthorpe.

Banthorpe hails from Melbourne, and despite not wearing the gauntlets for Bramhall this season, has pedigree as a wicketkeeper-batsman for Australia U19s and Victoria U23s.

Unfortunately, the talented seam bowling pair of Lancashire youngster Chris Sanders and exDerbyshire seamer Matt Higginbottom were both unavailable due to injury.

Wily spinner Simon Wilkinson was entrusted with the new ball, and promptly repaid his captain’s faith by trapping McCoy on the pads for a duck in the third over. The opposition then rallied, without taking the game away from the hosts, with young opener Arthur Pennington looking in good touch on 30.

However, he was tempted by a full toss from Iftikhar Naseer’s first delivery and hammered it straight to mid-on where Macciocchi took a smart catch to his left.

The Beavers then began to exert further pressure on the visitors with tight bowling and some energy in the field, as Grappenhall slipped again from 43-2 to 85-6, with the run rate scarcely above two per over.

Medium pacer Luke Littlewood had soon found his range to pick up two middle order wickets, providing solid support to Wilkinson and the impressive Macciocchi.

Only Gaz Burns for the visitors showed any additional resistance with the bat, as he took an aggressive approach to the Bramhall attack in