Portchester A v United Services - 28.10.07

Portchester A (5pts) - 66 all out (9.3 ov) lost to United Services (21pts) - 95 for 5 (12 ov)
Match report by Paul Hungerford

The A Team lost their second game of the season with a disappointing performance against United Services. Portchester won the toss and elected to bowl first. Travis Sawyer (3 overs for 21) again bowled well first up, conceding just 12 off his first 2 overs, but it was Rob Fackrell (3 overs 25 for 2) who made the breakthrough, taking the first 2 wickets. Paul Hungerford caught the first at mid-off and Brother Lee took a sharp stumping. When Paul (3 overs 23 for 1) came into the attack and claimed the wicket of opener Hurst, with his second ball, caught and bowled, things were looking rosy, with the score on 26 for 3 after 4.2 overs. However the introduction of no.4 bat Lewis added momentum to the US innings, with him taking 15 off Rob’s next over and retiring in quick time. The innings finished off on 95 for 5, with Dave O’Neill again bowling well taking 23 for 1 off his 3 overs.

96 was a total we expected to reach, but our innings never got out of first gear. Things got off to a bad start when Lee, our indoor-specialist opener bat got cleaned bowled second ball for 3, proving that he can be just a successful indoors as he is outdoors! Paul (11) was next to go trying to hit his old Uni mate and US spinner Dan Sharpe to the back wall for 6 in an attempt to increase the run-rate. The innings never recovered from a bad start, with Steve O’Neill run out for 3 (I don’t think he was too happy with his little bro’!). Rob was run-out for 0 as well, turning like the QE2 as he backed up too far at the non-strikers end. Dave with 23 held the innings together, but we really needed him to retire. With Dave out Travis was left to score the last 36 on his own off 3 overs and things looked desperate. Despite one lovely straight 6, the task was far too much and he got out caught & bowled for 8, leaving us all out for 66.

So once again the bowling, fielding and catching was good. To restrict the opposition to 8 an over is a position you should win the game from. However our batting let us down…. Hopefully it should improve as the season goes on.

For a Scorecard of the match click here