Portchester A v Purbrook A - 14.10.07

Portchester A (23pts) - 95 for 4 (11.4 ov) beat Purbrook A 91 (7pts) - all out (11.3 ov)
Match report by Paul Hungerford

The A Team won their first match of the season with a close encounter against Purbrook A. The opposition won the toss and elected to bat and were immediately under pressure after a fine start by Travis Sawyer (3 overs for 19) and Craig Coward (3 overs 1 for 16). The early pressure told when G. McKoy took on a risky run to Paul Hungerford whose direct hit accounted for the first wicket of D. Cleeve. The Purbrook innings continued along at around 6 an over, with wickets falling regularly. Steve O’Neill took a couple of good catches and Craig held onto a sharp return catch of his own bowling.

The innings gained some momentum when Paul (3 overs 1 for 36) got a touch of the Harmisons and gifted 15 runs in wides! (I’m blaming Staints and Galer who said the new red balls would swing miles. I didn’t swing a ball all night; even though I kept on allowing for it….maybe I should have worked that out a bit quicker!) Some good later hitting from T.Biffen helped Purbrook to a score of 91 - probably 15 more than they should have got after the first 8 overs. Dave O’Neill (2.3 overs 2 for 13) who also bowled excellently finished the innings off, clean bowling Biffen with 3 balls remaining.

The Portchester reply got off to a poor start with Dave (possibly suffering from a nose bleed after being asked to open the innings) drove one straight to mid-off, out 0. Paul ( came and fell the same way, attempting to walk down the wicket ‘Matthew Hayden’ style and smash a straight 6, all he could manage was drive one lamely to mid-off who snaffled the catch. Meanwhile Lee Hungerford (28*), our indoor-specialist opener was batting well, rotating the strike and playing his trademark scoop to the back wall. With Lee retired Craig (23*) and Steve came together, Steve batting well for 11 until he was run-out going for a quick single. Travis (2) joined Craig and the required run-rate gradually rose until we needed 10 off the last over. Travis got run-out attempting a risky single to get off strike, but Lee and Craig kept their heads with Craig smashing the 4th ball of the over for 6 to win the game with 2 balls left.

So all in all, it was a fine start for the A Team, with some excellent fielding and bowling. The batting again looked a little shaky at times, but hopefully it should improve as the season goes on.