With the match
reduced to 37 overs, Sway won the toss and put Trojans in
hoping to make good use of the ball on the covered SEPL
wicket.
Trojans came out
with all guns blazing however Rob Steadman soon struck clean
bowling one opener. Shortly after Sway struck again when
Steve Thistleton induced the faintest of edges to remove the
number 3. Trojans continued to attack smashing perfectly
good balls from Steadman in particular for some huge sixes.
However it was not to last as Steadman claimed 2
further wickets, first opener De Costa caught at gully by
Dave Marshall and the dangerous Maunsell clean bowled. At
this point Trojans quick start faltered as they needed to
bat in a more circumspect way due to the lost off wickets. A
partnership formed between M Ball and F Khan and it was in
the early stages on this that a key incident in the game
played out. Atapattu bowling to Khan got a nick that was
taken by Chris Hammond at slip. The batsman was already well
on the way to the pavilion when amidst confused scenes it
emerged that the square leg umpire has called a no-ball as a
result of keeper Adam Clark's gloves "breaking the line" in
front of the stumps. As is often the case, Khan went on to
make a match winning knock of 93!
Tee day got
worse for Sway when firstly Steve Thistleton had to be
removed from the attack for running down the wicket, and
then Jack Ford pulled a hamstring before he was able to bowl
a single ball. The 81-run partnership was eventually broken
when Chris Hammond trapped ball with his very first ball for
Sway 1st XI. With Sway now into the tail enders, Khan did a
pretty good job of retaining the strike. However, eventually
Khan was trapped by Atapattu for the first of his three
wickets and it seemed that Trojans might be bowled out for
190 odd. However some doughty batting and some dodgy bowling
(fair to say Grash 7-0-50-0 is not the new Shane Warne!)
allowed Trojans to post a decent total of 223-9.
Yet again Sway's
top order batting line up was on patchy form. Adam Clark was
trapped LBW by Khan for a duck and Atapattu was very unlucky
to deflect a leg side ball off his toes onto the stumps.
Alex Hall made it to 28 before also falling LBW to Khan.
After Henry Thornton was bowled for a golden, it was left to
skipper John Grasham partnered first with Chris Hammond (15)
and then Ross Clark (41*) to try and chase down the total.
Trojans slowed the bowling down and successfully squeezed
the run rate. With Grasham making a slow start and Clark not
renowned for big hitting the run rate crept up to 9 and
over. With 8 or 9 overs to go Grasham in particular
brought out the big guns, but some pretty decent Trojans
fielding kept the pressure up. By the time Grasham holed out
for an excellent 60 with 4 overs remaining, the rate was
alreadyl over 15 an over. With a ground alignment rivalling
that of Hinton Admiral, Dave Marshall, blinded by the sun,
received a tasty beamer in the ribs from Khan, hit the next
ball for 4 then was bowled. Next Robert Steadman was stumped
for 6 going down the wicket. By this point the game was
beyond Sway, however, a fine quick fire 23* from Steve
Thistleton did at least ensure that Sway picked up maximum
batting points.
A decent game
again a decent bunch of lads, however, a very tricky game to
umpire, however thanks to David Thistleton who was on top of
his game!