Ongar...223-7

Epping...198

(Friendly)

WITH the Essex League season just a few days away, local rivals Ongar and Epping locked pre-season horns on Saturday.

Both sides will take something from an extremely well-contested match but it was Ongar who came out of it with a confidence-boosting win.

The Ongar batsmen made good use of some decidedly over-friendly Epping bowling to set a challenging total of 223-7 in their 52 overs. The basis of their score was a well-crafted 69 by Steve Jeffries and a hard-hit 85 by Bruce Lewcock.

Epping's under-strength bowling attack suffered in the May chill with too many four balls being served up to the eager Ongar bats.

Dave Bickley bowled relatively tightly with little success and the only Epping bowling successes were spin twins Marc Webb (3-42) and skipper Geoff Maynard (2-28).

Epping needed a good start to their reply and did not get one falling to 29-3. The shoots of recovery were laid by opener Ed McElarney and Geoff Maynard.

The pair put on 95 for the fourth wicket before McElarney was out for a hard-fought 27 off the bowling of wily turner Dave Spennock.

Maynard continued the resistance and recorded Epping's first 50 of the season before falling for 69 off Spennick's bowling.

The Epping bid for victory continued with Paul Offord (32no), Phil Jackson (11) and Dave Bickley (18 made up of 3 sixes) entertaining the crowd. But Ongar continued to steadily take wickets and last man Nigel Foxwell was shot out with 25 still needed off five overs.