BRAINTREE Cricket Club visited Ipswich and East Suffolk looking to continue their winning run in division two of the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship.

The Chantry Park wicket looked more like a dried up river bed but it played surprisingly well, with Braintree having the upper hand and returning home with a six-wicket victory.

With England’s World Cup quarter-final game kicking off at 3pm, the league gave permission for early starts and a reduction in overs.

Therefore the game commenced at 11am with 25 overs per side.

Ipswich won the toss, elected to bat first and were soon in trouble as Will Jackson had Nathan Pryke trapped LBW with only the second ball of the innings.

Matters got even worse for them when George Bone edged a Robbie Spalding delivery into the gloves of Warren Celiz, but the home side rallied as Steve Warne and Naveed Maan steadily built an innings together.

Eventually, after the pair had put on 90 runs for the third wicket, Maan, having scored 46, was tempted by Louis Cant and Jackson took the resulting catch.

Joe Lander scored a quick-fire 34, however, with the Ipswich score on 152, he was caught by Josh Newman at long-on off Barry Stephen’s bowling and soon after Newman demolished Adam Storey’s stumps with no addition to the total.

After their allotted 25 overs, Ipswich had accumulated 167 runs for the loss of five wickets, with Worne having carried his bat after scoring 64.

In reply, Chris Leech and Celiz got Braintree off to a flying start scoring 19 off the first two overs.

However, the innings then stuttered as the flamboyant Celiz was clean bowled by Ishmail Mohammed after scoring 18 and Dan Chalk could only score a single before he presented Worne a catch off the bowling of Pryke.

Jackson joined Leech at the crease and the pair went about demolishing the Ipswich bowling attack, though.

Jackson in particular hit four giant sixes as he reached his half century off just 34 balls, while Leech also reached his 50.

However, next ball, he was tempted by a short delivery from Worne and could only hit the ball straight to Syed.

The pair had put on 98 runs for the third wicket and with the score on 140 had put Braintree in sight of victory.

Jackson was looking to end the game in style, but having made 73 and shaping up to put the ball out of the ground, he missed it completely and found himself stumped by Bone.

Dan Garner (10) and Barry Stephens (4) saw Braintree home with no further mishaps, though, and with almost four overs to spare.

Despite their victory, Braintree, having only secured two bowling points, found themselves dropping a place in the league to third.

However, things couldn’t be much closer at the top with just nine points separating Haverhill in pole position and Mildenhall in fourth.

Overall, it was an excellent weekend for Braintree as a club.

The Under-11s beat their Witham counterparts on Friday, while the seconds beat Worlingworth in Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship division six and the Sunday team secured a North Essex Cricket League division two victory over Chappel and Wakes Colne.

Carl Lees scored a century for Braintree in the 57-run win on Sunday.