Cromer Twos were the victims of a stunning one-man show as they slumped to a 49-run defeat at promotion rivals Bradenham in the Norfolk Alliance Division Five.
Chasing an eminently gettable 169 to win, Cromer ran up against first-team seamer Brett Gates, who ripped through the visitors' batting with a fine display of late in-swing bowling at a nippy pace.
Gates finished with the remarkable figures of 12-7-16-7 as he proved too good for the callow Cromer lineup. The only batsmen to reach double figures were Richard Graveling, with 17 before fatally misplacing a drive to be caught and bowled Fox; Nathan Taylor who showed his teammates how to do it with a resilient 17 at the end, and the excellent Pater Gascoyne, with a superb, calculated 59 not out.
Gascoyne saw off the dangerman Gates with no real problems, and gave a tantalising glimpse of what could have been for Cromer as he calmly dispatched the remainder of the Bradenham attack, who offered no threat and were left grateful for Gates's heroics. But it was too little too late, and Gascoyne was left high and dry as Cromer ran out of wickets to finish 49 short.
The Cromer bowlers and fielders had done the hard work, chipping away at the Bradenham batsmen with a solid display of aggressive cricket, especially in the second half of the innings. Once again all the bowlers contributed, Battrick with 2-44, Kev Neale with 3-33, and Sam Dickins with 2-17.
Nathan Taylor had bowled a firey first spell, but it was Alex Craske who was the pick of the bowlers, with two spells of quality, accurate seam bowling rewarded with figures of 3-20.
The fielding backed up the bowling; Lithins, Taylor and especially Gavin Neale with excellent catches, as Bradenham wer bowled out with the last ball of the innings to leave the visitors well on top at tea.
All Cromer needed was to show some of Gascoyne's class with the bat, but they were blown away by Gates as the innings slumped to 15-4, 27-6, and 38-8 before Gascoyne and Taylor gave the card some respectability. As Gates took his sweater after bowling his 12 overs straight through, the limitations of the rest of the home attack became clear and Cromer sniffed an unlikely victory even with nine down. But Taylor was unluckily bowled off his pads and Cromer had thrown away a golden chance to put the pressure on at the top of the table.