It was a glorious weekend for cricket and Brecon Cricket Club were able to get two teams out despite a number of unavailable players.

Report by Derek Osborne

Unfortunately neither the firsts or seconds were able to make hay and win their games but under difficult circumstances both sides put on a good show.

The firsts were at home and lost the toss and were asked to bat by visitors Whitchurch Heath, who are one of the strongest sides in the division. A typical early season wicket was a little slow and variable but the Brecon opening pair Ceitho Williams (16) and Rowan Starkey (35) had a much more productive time this week.

After Ceitho had departed James Davenport kept Rowan company during a generally watchful innings although the pair of them managed 6 fours between them as the scoring rate rose steadily. James became the first of many LBW victims and was followed shortly afterwards by Starkey and this brought young Jac Kenchington to the wicket. A bowler who can bat Jac took the attack to the opposition and played an excellent innings reaching 50 in 45 balls, including 6 fours, before he was unfortunately caught behind as the last wicket to fall. Ryan Morgan (13) and Ben Kenchington (21) backed Jac well but the final score of 177 in 43 overs was respectable but always looking a little short of a winning total.

Whitchurch had a very strong batting line up (as they modestly mentioned!). The openers put on 56 before Jac Kenchington trapped one of them lbw. Jac finished with 1 for 37 off 9 and was the most economical of the Brecon bowlers. Last weeks second team opening bowler Ryan Morgan came on as first change here and although a little expensive claimed 2 wickets from his 8.2 overs while Ceitho Williams got the only other wicket to fall. Whitchurch arrived at the required total with a number of overs to spare but this was not a complete mauling and Brecon can certainly take some positives from this for future matches.

Brecon 2nds travelled to Abercynon firsts who were opening their season due to the ground being flooded just two weeks before. A sticky, slow wicket bore testimony to this. Brecon’s skipper JK opted to bat and led from the front against a very good opening pair of pace bowlers who were exploiting the variable bounce. However, despite Robin Thompson falling early on the Kenchington brothers John and Buff held firm for the next 20+ overs. Runs were hard to come by and at half way the total only just exceeded the number of overs.

Buff fell or 16 while trying to raise the scoring rate and was followed by 2 more batsmen, Des Lally and Mike Haire who both also scored 16 in what proved to be valuable knocks. Owain Taylor , Dan Gee and George Alp-Williams all contributed to the total but the star batsman was JK who carried his bat for the 40 overs and scored 60 out of a team total of 131 for 6.

In response Brecon had Abercynon in a spot of trouble. Derek Osborne opened the bowling for the first time in many years and had a spell of 5 overs for 5 runs. Captain Kenchy went even better as his initial 5 over spell yielded 3 wickets for 10 runs. Unfortunately the Abercarn batsmen took a liking to some of the follow up bowling and the score started to increase more quickly. Former captain John Cooke, despite only playing once last year bowled an 8 over spell producing an excellent return of 1 for 32 with only his last over being attacked badly.

Abercarn arrived at the total with only 4 wickets down and overs to spare but the feeling was that if Brecon had just two more experienced bowlers it may have been a completely different story. The team will look forward to the opportunity to reverse this result at the home fixture in July.