Hales & Loddon CC faced Topcroft in a derby encounter in the Alliance and returned home with a losing draw.

Topcroft batted first and after losing two early wickets rallied with I Todd run out for 62, B Davey with 53 and top scorer of the day J Goodfellow finished not out on 78.

Topcroft finished with total 219-6 and as last week the H&L bowlers performed very well especially as there were two unavailable regulars. Pick of the bowlers was Mat Lovick who finished with 5-55.

Topcroft Batting: C Hancock b M Lovick 3, I Todd runout 62, B.Baldwin c S Arminger b M Lovick 0, B Davey b M Lovick 53, J Goodfellow not out 78, G Rostrum b M Lovick 8, D Todd c D Harmer b M Lovick. Bowling: R Andersen 13-4-61-0, M Lovick 13-3-55-5, K Jones 12-2-43-0, S Nunn 12-2-54-0.

Hales & Loddon H&L set about their task to improve on last week’s poor display with the bat, but were soon in trouble with the loss of opener S Arminger with only 15 on the board.

P Squire the H&L number three then joined D Harmer and with a 50 partnership took the score to 65-2. D Harmer was next out for 21 and M Stewart then joined P Squire and with another partnership approaching 100 began to believe that the result could go their way.

Squire was next out caught on the boundary for H&L’s top score of the day of 62. Stewart quickly followed finishing with 45. Wickets then fell at regular intervals and the priority became one of making sure that the match was not lost.

S Nunn, batting at number nine, ensured that H and L at least got a losing draw with a massive six.

Overall this was a good result for H and L after last week’s result.

The Hales and Loddon’ Read Bros Man of the Match award goes to Mat Lovick.

Hales Batting: D Harmer c-b J Goodfellow, S Arminger c C Hancock b I Todd 2, P Squire c A N Other b D Todd 62, M Stewart lbw D Todd 45, A Jones b B Baldwin 1, G Summons lbw D Todd, C Andersen c A N Other b G Rostrum, R Andersen ct A N Other b G Rostrum, S.Nunn not out 9. Bowling: I Todd 9-2-38-1, G Rostrum 12-1-45-2, J Goodfellow 5-0-23-1, D Todd 13-2-40-3, R Marshall 6-0-26-0, B Baldwin 5-0-16-1.

Hales & Loddon had been abruptly brought back down to earth after the previous week’s win when they entertained Acle in their second match of the season.

Acle batted first and after losing early wicket, D Huggins with 82 and T Wilson with 56, Hales and Loddon bowled Acle out for the total of 210.

This was a very good bowling performance from H and L against the former Premiership side.

Bowlers Rob Andersen took 3-30 and Steve Rowe took 6-39.

Unfortunately the H and L batting did not match the standard of the bowling and were destroyed by Acle’s veteran bowler P Newman who took 6-18 and were all out for a paltry 48 off 24 overs.

The only positive from the batting was that captain Philip Squire stayed at the crease for an hour but eventually ran out of partners.

The Hales and Loddon’s Musker McIntyre Man of the Match award goes to Steve Rowe.