HOB's long awaited first game of the season was finally underway against WG's at Downend. And like all first games it showed how rusty the majority of us were, especially in the batting.

Mike Serjeant and myself opened the batting. Not for very long unfortunately as i was bowled for 5 runs. Mike lasted a bit longer and was bowled for 7. A big up to Stu Adams for being the first person to get a duck this season ( he was soon followed by Samuel Lambshead ). 12 for 3. Not one of our best starts.

Thankfully Andy Barry and Tom Lambshead bailed us out of a tricky situation with the best partnership of the day. Tom hitting an all time highest with 21. I've never seen such an aggressive style of batting and his facial expressions are a work of art. Considering he's been out of the game for nearly 2 years i was very impressed. Andy was smashing them all over the place and looked well on his way to reaching the 50 mark until Ashley stepped in. All that weight loss had clearly effected his judgement, and just when we looked like cruising to an easy victory Ash decided to run out our highest scoring batsman. 33. Nice one Ash. We never really recovered from that and in the end we only managed 94 all out. Ash (5) Jon (8) Ed, Will and Anth (4).

I have to admit i didn't think we were going to win this one. Especially after the start they got off to. Dickson i think his name was, was smashing here there and bloody everywhere. But thankfully he was caught by the ever reliable Mr Barry. Some impressive bowling by Jon Smith and Will Thomas ( who claimed 3 wickets ) brought us right back in the game. Solid fielding as always ( apart from Jon's first drop catch of the season ) saw the HOB's narrowly win their first game by 2 runs.

We made hard work of it but got the win that we deserved.