Royals' Double Cup Dream Ends

Kent beat Hampshire by 20 runs in their Clydesdale Bank 40 match at The Rose Bowl.

Hampshire Royals v Kent Spitfires
Clydesdale Bank 40
Sunday 29th August 2010
The Rose Bowl

Summary
Kent beat Hampshire by 20 runs
Kent Spitfires: 241-6 (Briggs 1-35, Ervine 1-44)
Hampshire Royals: 221 (38.5 ov) (Adams 74, Carberry 57)

On three previous occasions, Hampshire had won eight limited-overs matches in a row. Today they looked to make it nine, but fell 20 runs short of chasing a 241-run target set by the Kent Spitfires.

The result leaves the Royals unable to qualify for the semi-finals of the Clydesdale Bank 40 competition, with the silver-lining being that they are now free to concentrate on securing Division One cricket next season.

Before the match started two special events were marked; first, 75-year-old local league legend, Stan Rudder fulfilled a lifetime ambition by bowling to Dominic Cork on the Rose Bowl pitch (read more here). He even – with a little help from some suspect footwork from Cork – managed to see the Hampshire captain’s wicket tumble!

Then the Hampshire team formed a guard of honour to salute Neil McKenzie, who marked his final match in front of home support by collecting his county cap. McKenzie will now play against Lancashire this week before going back to his home country to help the Highveld Lions compete in the Champions League.

Click here to see a full scorecard

With the niceties over the task of trying to win a cricket match started, and Hampshire began in a reasonably inhospitable way, allowing just 45 runs to come off the first 10 overs before Joe Denly mis-cued a pull to mid-on off Sean Ervine and was caught by McKenzie.

Almost immediately, Jimmy Adams, who looked excellent in the field all afternoon, executed a fine diving stop and ran out Matt Coles. The good news continued as Australian, Phil Hughes - on debut – also pulled off a lovely diving catch to his right at short extra cover to see off Spitfires skipper, Rob Key (27); Kent 71-3.

With little more than half an innings to go, Kent were reeling when up stepped Van Jaarsveld who, together with Gerraint Jones, put on a 79-run partnership to resume order. When Jones (40) was caught behind off Cork the Spitfires had just gone through the 150 mark and, with 12 overs remaining, were looking much better.

Five overs left and Kent were 182-4; van Jaarsveld unbeaten on 67. Then the visitors put their foot on the gas. The 200 came up in the 37th over and the South African, who could smell a century on the horizon opened up his shoulders. That ton came with 2 balls to go; Kent, in the process, ending on 241-5, having made the most of their batting powerplay.

Phil Hughes performed well on his Royals' debut scoring 32 and taking a good catch

Hampshire’s response started well with new-comer, Hughes announcing his arrival on the scene with two consecutive boundaries in the 4th over. A straight driven 6 in the next over saw the Royals' new boy move up to 16* with Adams on 17* and Hants 33 without loss.

And the opening pair moved safely through to 50 in the 9th over, still spraying the ball about nicely on a chilly afternoon to be fielding. When a well-run two brought up Adams’ personal 50 (off 47 balls with 7 fours) the openers had registered 82 in 15 overs.

The honeymoon couldn’t last, however, and six overs later both had left the crease (Adams 74, Hughes 32), while James Vince (6), fresh from becoming the third-youngest maiden centurion for Hampshire in the week, was also gone; Hampshire 115-3 inside 22 overs – 126 behind, but reassuringly ahead on Duckworth-Lewis.

For the next eight overs, McKenzie and Michael Carberry dug in, taking the team through 150 with 10 overs remaining. However, the Royals still needed to score at a pretty daunting rate of 9.2 per over to win.

Sean Ervine enjoyed a belligerent 10 minute cameo in which he sprayed three 4s and a 6 around the park to register 21, but his dismissal triggered a disastrous couple of overs for the Royals in which they lost four wickets for just 12 runs.

Despite a valiant effort from Carberry, who battled to make his 50 despite struggling with asthma, Hampshire eventually lost by 20 runs with an over to go. They travel to Liverpool next for Tuesday’s LV= County Championship match against Lancashire before playing their final CB40 match away to Leicestershire Foxes on Saturday.

Words: Simon Vincent - Images: Neil Marshall

Back to news