“It isn’t really good enough!” Boston CC fall to Sleaford

Boston CC’s first away day of the 2019 season was the short trip to Sleaford, ending in a six-wicket defeat.

With Ben Troops and Jon Cheer both unavailable, Boston brought Matt Poole and Rowan Evans into the side.

Some overnight rain and cold winds caused the ground staff some problems on Saturday morning and the start was delayed by 15 minutes.

At the coin toss, Sleaford were the winners and opted to have a bowl first.

Sam Holland and Tom Poole got Boston off to a steady start, putting on 57 for the first wicket before the latter was bowled by the off-spinning Tom Shorthouse for 22.

Matt Poole then joined Holland at the crease and was soon dismissed by Fairclough.

Fayadh Haffejee was run-out and Adeesha Thilanchana was dismissed, leaving Boston 63-4.

“Losing four wickets for six runs is not something we can do if we are going to win many games and, especially the first four wickets of the innings,” said Boston skipper Tom Baxter.

Holland and mahir Yousuff attempted to re-build the innings and a very good 75 run partnership did that before Holland was dismissed soon after passing 50.

From 138-4 to 147-8, Boston were in big trouble again and eventually dismissed for 167.

“It wasn’t good enough. We had two partnerships that contributed 132 runs and lost four wickets for six runs and then four wickets for nine runs.”

After the tea interval, Boston needed early wickets if they were to stand any chance of success.

Sleaford lost their first wicket on 26 but it wasn’t until the introduction of Paul Deans to the attack before Boston picked up their second wicket, Dakota Rodgers falling after a good catch from Sam Holland.

Shorthouse and Chamara Kapedgedura pushed Sleaford along and passed the 100 mark before a fantastic run-out from Luke Gilding saw the latter on his way back.

Shorthouse eventually fell to the bowling of Elleray but it was too late for Boston then as Fairclough only needed one ball to get Sleaford over the winning line.

“We’ve played two of the better sides in the league and come away with five points. It isn’t really good enough but we need to be focusing on picking up some victories in the next few weeks,” Baxter added.