The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Spalding Town slipped to the bottom of the Lincs ECB Premier League table after suffering their fourth defeat from as many games this season.
Having been put into bat against a Lindum side that had failed to win any of their opening three games of the campaign, Town were bowled out for just 121 in 37.3 overs.
Daniel Milgate (34), Nuwan Jayasena (31) and Warren Nel (28) were the only players to make solid contributions, with Joe Peatman (3-30) the pick of the home bowlers.
It took just 24.5 overs for the Lincoln side to knock off the runs, thanks largely to solid knocks from William Wright (58) and Luke Robinson (37 not out).
Defending that kind of target was always going to be tough for a Spalding side that was missing pace aces Henry Charlton and Charlie Kearns.
Jack Barratt (2-39) starred with the ball on a rare start and Jayasena (1-18) took the scalp of Wright, but Rob Ambrose’s side managed just one point from the game – a return that saw them plummet to the foot of the embryonic table.
Things could have been different for Spalding, had they not dropped half-centurion Wright early in his innings – but Ambrose offered no excuses as the hosts collected the maximum 20 points on offer to break their duck for the campaign.
He said: “We were always chasing the game. There was a lot of rain in Lincoln on Friday night and the pitch was very damp early on.
“They won the toss and chucked us in – and to be fair, their three quicks went through our top order pretty well.
“It was looking pretty dire at one stage, but Dan Milgate and Nuwan Jayasena did their bit to get us past 100 and keep it respectable.
“I was worried at one stage, we were on for a grim score.
“But massive credit to the lads, I didn’t see any heads dropping in the field. We gave it a good go and things could have been even better if we’d have managed to hang onto a difficult catch early on.
“We’ve just got to stay positive, it’s still early days in our season. If we’d have managed one win by now, things wouldn’t look anywhere near as bad as they do.
“The start we’ve had is far from ideal, but the atmosphere in the dressing room is still very good.
“The wins will come, I’m sure of it.”
