Church Aston recorded a much-needed win on Saturday, as they avenged their early-season defeat by MEB with a resounding victory.
Along with glorious sunshine came a rare win of the toss by skipper Richie Bennett, who asked the home side to bat first.
Aston's bowlers started well and restricted MEB’s openers, Martin Denton and Dan Tudor to a slow scoring rate.
The pair scored where they could, but accurate bowling by Mike Bishton and Gareth Callow, the slow outfield and enthusiatic fielding never let them really get the scoreboard rolling.
A few half-chances were spurned, but the introduction of Raj Patel brought the breakthrough, as Tudor (28) was dismissed with a well-taken catch by Thani Mani.
A procession of batsmen came and went, falling to either Ankush Nadkarni (3-19) or Patel (6-37) who got a weary Denton (47) to glove a catch to Mike Swales, the first of three wickets in four balls of his final over.
Anand Ranade wrapped the MEB innings up for 114 all out when he bowled Steve Denton.
Ranade was an early victim, caught behind for 14, but Bartlett and Thani Mani regrouped and kept the scoreboard ticking along.
With victory in sight, the score on 100 and MEB heads beginning to drop, Aston suffered a slight wobble as veteran MEB bowler Dave Adams (2-9) took two wickets in one over, Mani falling for 36 to a good diving catch by Steve Felton and then Justin Deacon holing out for a duck.
Ankush Nadkarni then joined Bartlett and together they saw Aston to a 7 wicket victory, with Bartlett undefeated on 38.
