ON a cloudy but thankfully dry afternoon, skipper Kevin Ratcliffe lost the toss and Birmingham Civil Service elected to bat.

BARNARDS GREEN SUNDAY I v BIRMINGHAM CIVIL SERVICE

The visitors got off to a steady start until Rich Brown made the breakthrough snapping up a caught and bowled with the score on 29.

Gulzar with 46 proved to be the mainstay of the innings until he became the first of Simon Clarke's four wickets, caught on the boundary by Tim Clarke.

At this stage the visitors were 98-3 off 26 overs and looked set for a total near 200 but some tight bowling at the end from Ratcliffe (3-12) and Jez Clarke (1-5) meant the visitors were bowled out in the last of their 40 overs for 155.

The Green's innings got off to a slow start against some accurate bowling from Anwar and Asfal, the latter getting his reward having New Zealander Boult caught smartly at slip.

After this Judd Doughty and Tim Williams played themselves in and won the game with an unbroken stand of 148.

On a slow outfield boundary, runs weren't easy to come by so the run rate between the wickets was an important feature.