Burnham Sports suffer a batting collapse (From Maldon and Burnham Standard)

Burnham Sports suffer a batting collapse

3:32pm Thursday 12th July 2012 in Sport

BURNHAM Sports suffered one of the worst batting collapses in their history as they lost by three wickets at Rayleigh.

Sports surrendered seven wickets for just three runs as they crashed from 87 for three to 90 all out against the unbeaten T Rippon Mid-Essex League first division league leaders.

That remarkable collapse became even more painful later in the day as Rayleigh edged home, having themselves been 69 for six at one stage.

Neil Saunders, standing in as skipper for Sports for the injured Andy Stephens, said: “It was ten minutes of madness and came completely out of blue.

“One minute we were 87 for three, with Dominic (Whittaker) and Jalal (Ahmed) both looking very comfortable.

“Then, the pair of them fell in quick succession and everybody else who followed them came and went.

“The real frustration is that had we managed just 40 or 50 more runs, I’m certain we would have won.”

Whittaker (41) and Jalal (30) looked like laying the foundations for a reasonable total but, once they succumbed, Sports completely lost their way.

The next five batsmen failed to add a single run between them.

When Rayleigh began their pursuit Robin Whittaker (four for 29) and Jalal (two for 14) gave their team the sniff of an unlikely victory but it was not enough.