Ross First XI hosted Bromsgrove in their penultimate league match of the season on Saturday August 25th. After heavy overnight rain on Friday, the Ross outfield and wicket looked in poor condition. However, Ross' groundsman, Chris Ball had other ideas, knowing the importance of this match as the First XI team pushes for promotion. He pulled out all the stops to ensure that the match went ahead and started on time.

At the start of the match Ross' captain Stuart Mair won the toss and invited Bromsgrove to bat first. The Ross opening bowlers, Harry Porter and Bruno Warwick, immediately started to cause problems for the Bromsgrove openers. In the third over Porter claimed the first wicket when he trapped Richard Hope LBW with the score board on 9. With rain starting to fall Bruno Warwick claimed the next wicket when Thomas Hope was well caught by James Gill at square leg. As the rain started to fall harder the Bromsgrove batsman rushed for shelter, as the Ross players rushed to put the covers over the wicket. With all the players sheltering from the elements in Ross' 1887 pavilion, the rain continued to get heavier by the minute. As the players looked out of the pavilion, one lone figure (Chris Ball) could be seen working on the square. After 30 minutes of heavy rain, the rain stopped. Now the task was to ensure that the ground was fit for play. Once again Chris Ball came to the rescue and within 20 minutes of the raining stopping, thanks to Chris' hard work, play could resume.

After the restart Ross quickly claimed the third wicket when Porter clean bowled Huthins with the score on 27. This brought together the left handers of Russell and Burrows who built a partnership and moved the score on to 69 before Burrows (19) was caught by Jack Casstles off the bowling Christiaan Ferreira. Duffy joined Russell at the crease and this allowed Russell to start to attack. Duffy (21) was caught by Bruno Warwick again off the bowling of Christiaan Ferreira with the score on 117. Ross continued to claim wickets and Russell continued to attack. Russell (90) was unlucky to be stumped off Ross wicketkeeper's (Adam McLarty) pads on the final ball of the innings, to finish on 184 for 9. Pick of the Ross bowlers was Christiaan Ferreira with 4 for 36.

Due to the rain interruption, Ross only had 36 overs to chase down the Bromsgrove total. Ross got off to a bad start when Jack Evans lost his wicket in the first over. This brought Bruno Warwick and James Tiffen together and started to put some runs on the board. They moved the score on to 66 before Ross lost Warwick (44) and Tiffen (24) in quick succession. An injection of pace was still required and this came in the form of Adam Mclarty (35) and Jack Casstles (14). Ross was still in with a chance of winning this match and they got the luck they needed when taking quick singles as the Bromsgrove fielders failed to produce any run outs.

In the last over of the innings, Ross still required 22 runs for an outright win. The third ball went for a six, a dot ball followed, 2 runs off the fifth ball. With the last ball of the match Ross required a six to win outright, Harry (39*) managed to score another two runs and the innings finished on 180 for 7 wickets. As this was a rain affected match Ross had a winning draw due to their higher run rate.

This result keeps Ross in third place in their Division and in contention for promotion and only one point behind Avoncroft, who visit Ross for the final game of the season next Saturday, September 1st starting at 12.30pm.