Moment of magic eludes the Beavers

BRAMHALL lost the toss on a chilly day at Macclesfield and the home side asked the Beavers to bat first on a dry looking track.

The visitors got off to a poor start losing vice-captain Ashley West in the second over, bowled with the score on 4.

Macclesfield continued to chip away at the Bramhall top order, reducing them to a precarious 39-5 with Alex Hunt having been the only one to manage double figures.

To their credit, the away side then set about rebuilding the innings and this was initially achieved with brilliant batting from Chris Sanders and Ryan Macciocchi at seven and eight respectively.

The pair combined to add 48 before Sanders was caught for 41.

Another wicket quickly fell to bring the score to a fragile 119-8, before Macciocchi found a willing lieutenant in James Davenport and they added a crucial 76 with Davenport contributing 26 of these.

Bramhall closed the innings out on 189-9 off the allocated 50 overs, with Macciocchi displaying all-round pedigree in making an excellent unbeaten 66.

Bramhall knew the score was a competitive one and it would require some application from the hosts to top it.

The Beavers then started the second half brilliantly with Sanders and Simon Wilkinson sharing the new ball. Macclesfield were reduced to to 21-3 before they started to put a couple of key partnerships together.

The visitors continued to chip away using the wide variety of bowlers available to captain Nick Cantello, but Bramhall lacked a degree of penetration with the ball.

The score had further slipped to 65-5 before James Cross joined Miles Bradshaw in the middle.

The pair contrived to put on a clinical unbroken 125 run partnership to clinch the points for Macclesfield, making good use of the short boundary to one side.

Despite a solid performance from the bowlers, with the wickets shared between Sanders, Wilkinson and Macciocchi, that little moment of magic was missing to enable the Beavers to make the crucial breakthrough in an innings which somewhat resembled Bramhall’s own batting resurgence after a top order collapse.

Bramhall gained eight points from the fixture and will be looking to get back into winning ways next Saturday against Didsbury at Church Lane, knowing that there needs to be more regular runs scored at the top of the innings to put games out of reach of the opposition.