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Last updated 17-Jun-2008.
Match Report
Well having won the toss, Jocky did something he would not normally do and chose to field first with the belief that our long and youthful batting line up would knock off the target.
Simon Grant and Ollie Challis opened up and both opening bats found it tough against the bowlers and Simon got the breakthrough taking their overseas off stump!! Ollie continued to bowl well and was unlucky not to pick up a wicket with batsmen often looping the ball between the fielders. Matt Reeves then replaced Simon and Jocky replaced Ollie with the score around 80-1 after 14 overs with both bats starting to get going. With Reevesy bowling his medium pacers and Jocky with some dodgey off-spin, they managed to drag the rate back a little and Reevesy then got the important wicket of Jordan their captain with his magical slower ball which young olly caught at mid-on, despite young clinchy running in to him!! wickets then started to tumble and the breaks were put to the scoring. Hungerford and Zee then put on a useful partnership for them until the arrival of Rob Clinch who took out Hungerfords middle stump. Ollie Challis then did a superb direct hit run out to remove Young. Zee by this time had passed his fifty and steered Portchester to a total of 210-7 off 40 overs.
We had tea and then Sammy Floyd and Blacky opened up. Sam hit a few nice shots and again showed encouraging signs of promise before he was bowled by the pace Hungerford. This brought Squidge to the crease and straight away he hit some fine shots. Shortly after, we had a rain shower with the score at 35-1 off 8 overs. We eventuallly got back out with a rearranged target of 186 of 35 overs. Blacky, after his coaching session with Les was looking good until he was run out going for a quick single!! Young Tom Hopkins then joined simon who was firing along. Tom played a great little knock by rotating the strike with simon and even swept there overseas for 4! eventually Tom fell and this brought Matt Spicer to the crease. like Tom he played well and ably supported Simon as he passed the fifty mark. there was some great running which saw matt hit a 5 and together they put on fifty to take us to 121 off 27 overs. Reeves and Clinch came and went and jocky then joined Squidge. Together they got it down to 8 needed off 2 overs!! Jocky then hit a 4 and then got cleaned up by Zee. Chris O then went out and saw off the rest of the over which meant we needed 4 off the last over with squidge on strike. He got a one and young Olly then creamed the bowler through extra cover for 4 to top off an excellent win by the team which had an average age of around 15!!!!. Squidge ended up 90* in a superbly paced innings. All the youngsters looked good too and things are looking very positive for years to come. Well played boys.
