Produced by Cricket Statz - www.cricketstatz.com
Last updated 16-Jun-2009.
Match Report
Away to Portsmouth & Southsea 2nds the previously undefeated 3rds came unstuck.
P&S won the toss and surprisingly stuck us in.
Ian and Fraz started slowly against some very fine swing bowling, Fraz being the first to go trying to up the run rate. Andy Evs came in and started well only to play a poor pull shot to a very wayward delivery out caught.
The chairman scratched around for a while before being out caught by the keeper for 1. All the time Ian batted away carefully at the other end. Tosders was sent in to hurry things up only to fall to the very good 20 yr old spin bowler. Greg came in and carried on from previous weeks pushing the score along nicely. 200 looked possible but then Ian was run out going for 2!!, good knock though for 66. Wickets fell steadily after this before a late cameo from Robbo took us to 172 for 9.
After tea Greg gave another one of his Churchillian team talks, no mention of 1 more win and we are safe.
Les opened up from one end and Senior from the other. The skipper decided to do away with slips and of course Les had a couple go through 1st slip area. P&S were going at 4 an over and looking in control untill Robbo came on and pulled us back into it with 2 lbws in quick succession. Les plugged away at the other end finishing a tidy 10 over spell with 2 wkts. P&S were 70 odd for 6 at this stage and looking all but beaten. I was given a go after all my pre match talk but didn't deliver. Young Rob came on bowled well and took a wicket in his 1st over. All the time the young batsmen from P&S was scoring quite freely and getting his team closer to their target. A run out by the chairman gave us new hope and Robbo returning for his final spell seemed to be all we needed. Their number 9 joined the youngster and managed to hold onto his wicket despite some good bowling from Robbo (4 for 22) and Fraz (3 overs, 0 for 8). Senior came back for his last few overs and we thought this would finaly finish them off. The number 9 had other ideas and hit Ian for about 15 of one over, with the youngster still scoring freely at the other end we didn't look like getting them out and they won the game with four balls to spare.
Despite losing it was an excellent game played in a good spirit. P&S were a young side with a lot of talent.
The fact that they are a Premier league club's 2nd team and we should've beaten them shows how far the club has come. We're still joint top and if we can beat Bransgore on Saturday we will have played all the top teams I believe, only losing to one of them.
