Produced by Cricket Statz - www.cricketstatz.com
Last updated 03-Aug-2008.
Match Report
A 42 run win that will, unfortunately, be remembered most for one ugly incident in the visitors' innings.
We lost the toss but were surprisingly inserted. Mark Hansford hit a few nice shots before being dismissed for 13 and Stuart Raddon (40) and Richard Azar (25) batted carefully to take us to the 80s before three wickets fell in four balls, Ian Street run out by a direct hit going for a second off his first ball faced. Fraser Tait (12) crunched three fours but the innings was set by a 55 run 6th wicket partnership in under 8 overs between Rob Gibbens (45) and Rob Carpenter (19), Gibbens in particular hitting cleanly and using his feet well to get to the pitch of the ball. Both were out in the last few overs as we posted Portsmouth PO a difficult target of 174 to win.
Rob Carpenter bowled a tidy opening spell (5-1-15-0) and Mike Edwards was keeping the batsmen hopping about, hitting the opening batsman above the heart (with the ball I should add) and then dismissing him plum lbw for 12. The Posties though pushed the envelope, garnering runs steadily to take them to 66-1 off 16 overs before Mark Callow and Mike Brogan slowed the scoring to a trickle and wickets began to fall. Mark picked up the stodgy number three for 3 and then bowled the other opener for 40 before picking up his 3rd and 4th wickets in an 8 over spell of 4-18. Brogan's loop fooled another batsman to leave the visitors reeling at six down for around 100. Now while this is a public forum I will restrict myself to what is established and not conjecture..........
The match was already over all bar the shouting. Mike Edwards returned to replace Mark at the Childrens' Playground End and bowled a full length ball, the batsman advanced a pace down the wicket and was hit on the pad. Ian Black the umpire raised his finger to give him out lbw. Neither the batsman nor the non-striker were too chuffed at the decision and apparently the non-striker muttered something not too pleasant in the umpire's direction. In the next over, the aforementioned batter slogged at Brogan to be caught by Edwards running around to near the bowler. Words were directed at the umpire and then exchanged between the now departing batsman and Edwards and suddenly (I was looking down at my scorebook at that moment - no honestly I was) the two were grappling with other Sarisbury players trying to break them up. Two Portsmouth players also ran on to the ground, I thought to help break it up, but instead as it transpired to get involved and stoke things up further. Eventually, the batsman walked off and the WAGs were cursing at us (including me who was scoring!), with poor Rob Carpenter, who stood near the boundary throughout the fracas, also copping some abuse!
The rest of the match was rather downbeat, Brogan finishing with 2-38 off 11 overs and Callow completing remarkable figures of 6-20. It's a shame that the match won't be remembered either for his devastating spell of bowling or Rob Gibbens' earlier innings, both matchwinning efforts. I gather the Portsmouth PO captain came into the dressing room to apologise at the end but - even with the chilli party at the Hollow postponed - the incident and ensuing unpleasantness left a sour taste in many mouths. Whatever one thinks about the rights and wrongs of umpires' decisions (and there were two lbws also given against our batsmen in our innings too by our umpires) blah blah blah......let's leave it at that!
One thing is for certain - it was a deserved victory and another step toward promotion.
