BRAINTREE........................259-3

COPFORD................................135

By virtue of Saturday's abandoned match at Lakenheath, Braintree arrived at Copford on Sunday as Division Two champions.

Despite winning the championship before a ball was bowled, Braintree produced another thumping performance by crushing Copford by 124 runs.

This became their ninth straight maximum haul of 20 points since their disappointing home defeat to St Margarets back in July.

After winning the toss and deciding to bat on a wet wicket in overcast conditions, Braintree suffered an early setback but Andy Cook and Chris Warn then batted cautiously in difficult conditions bringing up the 50 in the 16th over.

Once settled, Cook and Warn then blitzed the Copford bowling attack to all parts of the ground.

They brought up their 200 partnership in the 38th over.

Warn was finally out when the score had reached 234 for a magnificent 120 which included eight sixes and 11 fours.

Andy Cook was out shortly after for 115 (two sixes and 13 fours) as Braintree finally reached 259-3.

In reply Copford made a slow start against the opening attack of Dave Hale and Steve Rose with only 25 runs coming from the opening overs. Dave Hale then took three quick wickets plus a superb run out to leave Copford 58-4 in the 17th over.

From 115-5 Copford then collapsed against the spin attack of Shaun Gould (4-28) and Andy Cook (2-12).

With the fall of the final wicket skipper Graham Gooday lead his players off the pitch as resounding winners of Division Two and with confidence high of a successful return to Division One next season.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.