Thorns youngsters prevail in pre-season derby friendly

With several regular first team players still on football duty, and captain Rob Travers searching the skies in vain for a plane to New York, it fell to several of Glastonbury's younger players to do the business in the annual 1st XI pre-season friendly with Street.

Glastonbury batted first. Tom Blanchard and Tom Brock, both 16, opened proceedings but got off to a pretty slow start and with only 11 runs on the board after seven overs Street must have been  hopeful of containing the Thorns to a low total. That was before both started to hit big! A superb partnership of 131 took Glastonbury to the 29th over before Brock was out lbw for 45. Blanchard's well-crafted innings, which included seven fours and four sixes, took his personal tally to 83 before he was caught behind in the 33rd over off Hamish Malone's bowling. A quick-fire 32 from Grady Marsh saw Glastonbury finish the 40 overs on 202 for the loss of six wickets.

Street did not waste any time in their chase and were well ahead of the run rate on the first 10 overs until the first wicket fell, Andrew Bartlett clean bowled by Thorns' newcomer James Dickens. After that, wickets fell at regular intervals and Street were well contained with only Kevin Wall (35) getting over 30. His scalp fell to Marsh who also helped mop up the tail end to finish on figures of 3-29.

A slight wobble in the last few overs, thanks to a rapid 29 from Malone, saw Street look in with a real chance of reaching the required total but in the end they fell 15 runs short after Will Dickens took the last wicket with four balls to spare.

After the game, Glastonbury chairman, Adrian Marsh, was full of praise for his young side. "This was a good solid all-round performance from Glastonbury which showed that the talents of several of our younger players will be a real asset to the 1st and 2nd XIs this season," he commented.