Brook 2nd XI travelled to Elstead to play Tilford III at their backup ground. Jim Macaulay won his 5th toss in a row and quickly inserted Tilford under leaden and foreboding skies.

Brook’s pace attack of Neil Cooper (2-19) and Jasper Hudson (4-27) soon had Tilford in trouble as they extracted movement from muggy conditions and a helpful pitch. David Carpenter pouching two excellent early catches behind the wicket. Tilford rallied in the middle overs with C Adam (51) mixing solid defence with aggression. He found support from H MacDonald (31) and the lower order to post a competitive total of 138 from 40 overs. Brook put in a strong shift in the field with all the bowlers deserving credit. The highlights being Jasper Hudson’s disciplined pace and aggression - aided by spectacular catching (including a diving one-hander from young Matthew Bisset).

Brook made a very poor start to the run chase losing our top 4 in no time and with very few runs on the board. Tilford bowled accurately and patiently as they waited for errors in the batters' judgement on the slow wicket. At 34-5 Tilford were strong favourites but Brook counter-punched with a match winning partnership of 74 between Finn Macaulay (38) and Neil Cooper (56*). Finn showed great maturity and patience, backing up a solid defence with his ability to rotate the strike. Meanwhile, Neil kept up with the challenging run rate by using selective hitting and aggressive running in his Man of the Match knock. Brook won by 4 wickets with 7 balls remaining, a great team effort in our toughest test of the season so far. Our thanks as always to Trevor Walters for umpiring his way through the murky afternoon!

Brook take on Frensham IV next week.

Report by Jim Macaulay