Bailey stars again as Panthers see off promotion rivals

IN-FORM batsman David Bailey produced another match-winning performance as Stratford moved up to second in the Birmingham League Division Three table with victory over Stourbridge.

Bailey’s unbeaten 67 saw the Panthers claim a vital four-wicket success over one of their main promotion rivals.

After suffering relegation last season, Bailey feels the Panthers stand a great chance of an instant return to Division Two, with what he feels is a more settled side this year.

He said: “It was a really pleasing win. It’s been nice to make some good contributions this year, but our batting as a whole looks a lot stronger — John Price has been getting plenty of runs too.

“I think we’re much more settled as a batting unit this year.”

On the team’s chances of promotion, Bailey added: “I think we have to believe we’re going to do it.

“We want to be in the mix in the last four or five games, then we’ll know we have a great chance.

“We certainly have the team to do it and we all want to bounce back as quickly as possible.”

Up against a strong Stourbridge side, yet again this season the Panthers found themselves in the field first.

Skipper Mike Brown and Aidy Witts opened up and kept it tight for the first 12 overs, giving nothing away and picking up an early wicket through Brown.

It soon became obvious that this was going to be a high-scoring Stratford wicket, so the Panthers went more defensive earlier than usual, happy in the knowledge that going at four runs an over was not an issue.

The returning Jon Gill struck early, removing Alex Bingham, who last year struck a century against Stratford.

This brought together young Worcestershire academy stars Zain Ul-Hassan and Jujhar Johal, who defied their inexperience in knocking the ball around and taking Stour up to and beyond 100.

As the away side looked to up the run rate in the closing overs, wickets began to fall more regularly, Gill claiming two more and Perry Derrick also picking up a couple.

At one stage it looked like the Panthers would be chasing around the 220 mark, however some lofty sixes from South African Jade Ritcher took Stourbridge to 244-9 at the conclusion of their 50 overs.

Price found the boundary regularly in Stratford’s reply as he raced beyond 40 before opening partner Rob West had reached double figures.

West soon caught up though, as Stourbridge’s overseas signing struggled to find his length and was repeatedly cracked to the fence by West.

In fact, these two had taken the score to 94 before the Stour spin duo of Dominic O’Reilly and Johar took over, ripping the heart out of the Panthers’ top order as they fell to 148-5. At this stage, Stratford looked second favourites again.

Key man Bailey was joined by all-rounder Witts and they saw off the spinners before looking to accelerate against seam bowling.

This is exactly what they did, running well between the wickets and putting the bad balls away.

Still needing nearly 80 runs off the last ten overs, both men were confident and did not disappoint, comfortably scoring at over eight an over to reach the victory target in the penultimate over, despite Witts being run out for 43 with just two runs needed for victory.

Once again Bailey was named as the REPL man-of-the-match as his perfectly-paced 67 not out took Stratford to the win.

Pick of the away bowlers was Johal, who added to his earlier 45 runs by taking 4-28 from ten overs of leg spin.

“We knew it would be our toughest test of the season so far,” said Stratford skipper Brown.

“It was a good performance and I’m happy with the 20 points. By their own admission, Price and Bailey probably didn’t perform like they wanted to last year, but they’ve been in great form this year.

“I still wouldn’t say this was a complete performance and there are still things to work on, but I can’t complain.”

This Saturday sees a top of the table clash take place when Stratford visit Birmingham Premier League Division Three leaders Newport.