26th July 2011

HURRELL AND HANNIBAL IN BOWLING MASTERCLASS

SWAY   233 - 9  ALDERTON   208

Editors Note: You may not be surprised to know that this report and headline were written by a certain Mr D Hurrell of Sway!

Alderton who first played Sway away back in 2003 (as South Loughton & Wootton ) were welcomed back to Jubilee Fields and with their almost traditional 10 players they usually select Steve Keen but as the diminutive stumper was unavailable although he did meet up with his team mates in the pub later, Dave Hurrell made up their 11.

Sway batted first and David Steadman  and Pete Bennet got away to a good start with Steadman reaching 50 and retiring and 91 runs were on the board before 2 wickets fell and at 105 Brian Perry ( 2-28 ) trapped Bennet lbw for 37. Skipper Martin Pye brought himself on to bowl and he had Chris Hammond caught just as he was starting to get into top gear, then in a moment of pure inspiration Pye threw the ball to Hurrell who baffled his team mates having Dan Stevenson lbw playing all around the top spinner, then Laurie Symons was caught behind and finally Casper Todd failed to pick the 'wrong un' and was bowled round his legs. Pye also picked up the wicket of F.J.Charton ( he just had to ) and suddenly Steadman was back in with James Howard for company and still 6 overs remaining. These two saw the overs out putting on 44 runs unbeaten with Steadman making 74 not out and Dapper 14 including a newly found slog sweep, Hurrell ended with 3-28 and Pye 2- 24.

J.Law and M.Humphreys opened for Alderton and after hitting an early 4 Humphreys belted the ball hard straight at young James Marshall and set off for a run only to see Marshall field the ball cleanly and return to Symons who ran him out by miles. Law and Perry looked in good form and took the total on to 51 before Steadman caught Law for 24 off of Andy Lee and just before halfway Perry was called for a quick single but once again Marshall swooped and a direct hit removed him for 25 with Alderton on 101 - 3 after 20 overs.

T.Law and K.Newell moved things along nicely with Law hitting six fours before Lee had him stumped by Symons for 37, D.Rebak kept Newell company and at 150 - 4 with 11 overs left Alderton were in with a chance. Sway skipper Steadman now called up Steve Hannibal and the medium pace part timer ran amok collecting his fifth wicket for just 18 runs with mini Marshall swooping low at point. This left leaving Pye batting with last man Pete Finson however these two added 35 runs together before Stevenson had Finson caught behind leaving Pye 32 not out and 1 over unused and Sway winners by 25 runs.