Having been soundly beaten by Luctonians, a fortnight ago and loosing their home game the following week to the weather, Crickhowell had to travel to Garnons last Saturday with a side depleted through injury and unavailability.

In fact they only had nine men and young Lloyd Francis to face a strong Garnons side – the only team to have beaten Luctonians this year, so far.

Things were never going to be easy therefore, and with a showery forecast, the home side then won the toss and invited Crickhowell to bat first.

Crickhowell then promptly lost two early wickets with Parker being smartly stumped and Jawahir top edging a catch to fly-slip.

A heavy shower then interrupted play for about 30 minutes but on the resumption, Lilly and Cornock put on 50 for the third wicket, and looked to be setting a good base for a decent total. Lilly went on to score a creditable 60 and has been the most consistent batsman all season with others around him running hot and cold, but even when he went, with the score on 110, Crickhowell would have hoped to get somewhere close to 200.

Garnons though, with their tails up, were making life difficult for the middle order, which hasn’t been performing well all season, and although Francis senior and Wallace showed some resistance, scoring was difficult and Garnons soon ripped through the fragile tail.

Pritchard in particular was using the conditions well and finished with five for 34 in his 12 overs. Garnons only needed to take nine wickets to bowl 10-man Crickhowell out and the last five wickets fell for nine runs in 10 overs, with young Lloyd Francis remaining not out, and showing good defensive technique.

Defending a total of just 119 with only nine senior players and one junior on Garnons immaculate, but small, ‘billiard table’ surface, now fully dry in the bright evening sunshine, was always going to be difficult, but at least Jawahir was now fit to bowl and perhaps his pace could make in-roads and make life difficult for the home side.

When your luck is out though in cricket, things do not seem to go well, and literally injury was added to insult, as Jawahir managed to dislocate a finger, fielding a ball off his own bowling, and had to be taken to hospital for treatment.

Nick Francis too, managed to damage a foot in the field and although he didn’t need a trip to hospital, his bowling had to be curtailed and Cornock, Lilly and young Lloyd Francis all had to turn their arms over, to try to plug the gap.

With Ben Bowker and father Phill failing to make a breakthrough earlier on and Crickhowell’s other main bowlers now injured or ‘gone’ and with only nine fielders on the pitch, Garnons marched to their total in some style with openers Jones [61] and Debenham [38] remaining undefeated.

This was another disastrous game for Crickhowell as they were pointless and might well have lost Jawahir for the next two games which include a T20 cup game in mid-week and another difficult away fixture at Goodrich next Saturday.

Hopefully Crickhowell can get back to winning ways soon and replicate the promising form shown earlier on in the season, to mount a challenge for the top order places, and avoid the slide towards mid-table mediocrity.

The only plus for Crickhowell in this game apart from Lilly’s form with the bat, was to see young Lloyd Francis shaping up well all round, and bowling three overs at the end more economically than his father Nick!