St Annes First XI made the long trip to Barrow for the their first game of the 2007 season and having lost the toss we were asked to bat first on a slow wicket with little bounce. As the innings progressed the feeling among the team was that a score of 200 would be an over par score for the wicket. As he returned to the pavilion early evergreen opener Adrian 'G.C' Darlington commented that '180 could be a winning score today'.

We eventually made 191 all out, mainly thanks to an excellent and patient 72 from opener Gareth Evans. Some excellent hitting late on from Adam Cotton and Dave Taylor saw us achieve a good score for the wicket.

In reply Barrow got off to a good start with the St Annes bowlers finding it tough going, in particular professional Shane Harwood who found the wicket not suiting to his pace and the lack of bounce making it difficult. The introduction of Ian Austin in the middle of the innings dried up the runs but Barrow were still making good progress. However, on his return after a break Austin took two wickets in an over, including the Barrow professional for 72 to turn the game on its head. Some accurate bowling in the latter stages and some excellent keeping stood up from new skipper Duncan Whalley put pressure on the Barrow batting. With Barrow ending up ten runs short of our total it gave us a hard fought winning draw to start our 2007 campaign.

Points - Barrow 7, St Annes 9.