Bletchley Town 1 vs Leighton Buzzard 1
Bletchley made the short trip to Leighton buzzard to kick off the 2020 season in Tier 2B missing some key players. With Leighton Buzzard being in the league above it was going to be a tough test first up.

Skipper Patrick Scholte won the toss and decided to have a bowl first. The Leighton openers got off to a good start and were 29-0 before Zulfiqar Ahmed found the outside edge and Aky Hussain took a smart catch at gully. That was as good as it got for Bletchley for the first 25 overs. Some poor bowling and numerous dropped catches were to cost us dearly.

Leighton continued in fine fashion and opener Jack Kempster was making us pay for the dropped catches. Dropped twice at cover and edgeing one between keeper and first slip. Leighton moved to 110-1 and were looking at a big total of 280-300 at drinks. Mark Burfoot was bowled by Zaheer Khan and Wayne Tyas bowled by Teymour Omar leaving Leighton on 156-3. Kempster was striking clean and moving towards 100.

Kempster duly got to his 100 and ended on 110 before chipping to skipper Patrick Scholte at mid off. Zulfiqar Ahmed and Syed Ali were brought back into the attack and a flurry of wickets helped claw Bletchley back into the game. Leighton eventually finishing 220 all out.
Wickets were shared between the bowlers with the pick being Syed Ali 4-50, Zulfiqar Ahmed 3-33 and Zaheer Khan 2-57.

With a big total to chase against a team in the division above us it was always going to be a hard task. Bletchley started well but lost opener Yasir Raja in the second over. George Hendry and Zaheem Bashir recovered well and Bletchley were 57-1 after 13 overs. Unfortunatly wickets fell as regualr intervals after that and 3 run outs did not help to cause. Bletchley eventually ended 128 all out with the wickets shared between all the Leighton Buzzard bowlers.

Overall it was a rusty performance from Bletchley who will feel they could have made it a closer game by taking our catches and restricking the Leighton total. We move onto next week with a home game against Great Brickhill 2.