Bowling Barage Sinks Surrey

Match report from the Hampshire Royals' Friends Life t20 match against Surrey at The Ageas Bowl

Hampshire Royals v Surrey
Friends Life t20
Saturday 30 June 2012
The Ageas Bowl

Summary: Hampshire beat Surrey by seven wickets
Surrey: 94-6
Hampshire Royals: 95-3 (15.3 ovs)
Scorecard
Concurrent Table

Royals Team
Adams, Vince, Katich, McKenzie, Ervine, Maxwell, Dawson, Mascarenhas*, Wood, Bates+, Briggs
Surrey Team
Davies+, Roy, Kartik, Wilson, Hamilton-Brown, Spriegel, Ansari, Batty*, Meaker, Tremlett, Nannes

An excellent powerplay bowling performance from Hampshire gave them the platform they needed to comprehensively beat Surrey by seven wickets in this Friends Life t20 match at The Ageas Bowl.

Left-arm spinner Liam Dawson (2-19) and T20 captain, Dimitri Mascarenhas (2-12) took two wickets each to leave their visitors floundering on 9-4, then 26-5. And, despite some resistance from Matthew Spriegel (14), Zafar Ansari (38*) and Gareth Batty (23*), their total of 94-6 never looked remotely good enough.

An opening partnership of 43 between James Vince (25) and Jimmy Adams (17) only served to confirm what we already knew. And Glenn Maxwell (22*) and Neil McKenzie(20*) rounded off an excellent team performance by steering their side across the line with 27 balls remaining.

The win sees Hampshire cement their second place status in the South Group table ahead of a trip to the Kia Oval on Monday to play the same opposition once again.

 

Hampshire wouldn’t have minded losing the toss and being put in the field. In the last three games they’ve chased and they’ve won each time. So it was no surprise they approached their task without fear here; Dawson getting things off to a cracking start by clean bowling Steven Davies (3).

And things would quickly get even better when Mascarenhas knocked two more down in the next over - Murali Kartik (0) and Jason Roy (1) both fending the seamer to short third man within four balls; Surrey 7-3.

That would become 9-4 when some excellent fielding from Mascarenhas and Danny Briggs ran out Rory Hamilton-Brown half-way through the third. And when the visitors made it through the powerplay without further loss, it seemed like there had been a long pause between wickets.

Not to worry; normal service was resumed as Gary Wilson waltzed down the wicket to Dawson only to make a complete hash of the shot and be stumped by Michael Bates; Surrey 26-5 off 6.5.

Having had their best opportunity to put runs on the board wiped out, the visitors had no choice but to almost go into Championship mode, steadily building something that might resemble a decent total, rather than going for the crash, bang, wallop we’ve come to expect from short-form batting.

Zafar Ansari (38*) and Gareth Batty (23*) salvaged something for their team with an unbeaten 52-run partnership from 53 balls before they ran out of overs. But with the hosts knowing the required run-rate was only 4.75 they were hardly going to take the risks Surrey would need to steal cheap wickets.

And it wasn’t until they’d reached a relatively circumspect 23-0 off five overs that they really opened their shoulders. Vince [pictured left] took the sixth over to Stuart Meaker pulling to the on side for four, then cutting to the off side for another. A further boundary, followed by a massive top-edge for six, saw 18 come off it in total and the game was all but over with half of the runs still left to knock off.

Murali Kartik (3-16) did, briefly, hint at giving his side hope by taking three wickets in the space of three overs but the fielding side’s cheers were notably muted, implying that even they knew the game was beyond them.

All that was left was for Maxwell  – the man they’d all come to see after some belligerent batting against Kent and against Essex in the last week – to put in a brief cameo. And although he didn’t have much to work with, the Australian didn’t disappoint, thumping Ansari for a six before Neil McKenzie stroked the same man for a four in the 15th over to put their side to within 4 runs of their target.

Another run to the ropes from Maxwell was all it took to give the Royals their fourth win in four. Five out of five in the return fixture on Monday would go a long way towards Quarter-Final qualification for the third year in a row.

Trees for Boundaries:

During this match the Royals scored a total of 10 boundaries (two sixes and eight fours). Thanks to Hampshire Cricket and The Green Insurance Company's joint "Trees for Boundaries" campaign that means 100 extra trees will be planted at Great Chalfield Manor, in Wiltshire.

Added to the number of boundaries scored already in the competition, that means 440 trees (44 boundaries) have been amassed by the Hampshire team at home so far this competition.

The Royals' top boundary-scorers (home and away) at this stage are as follows:

	Player	4s	6s	Total
1	Glenn Maxwell	14	13	27
2	James Vince	19	3	22
3	Jimmy Adams	14	3	17
4	Sean Ervine	8	5	13
5	Simon Katich	6	2	8

The aim is to capture the carbon dioxide emissions arising from putting on t20 matches at The Ageas Bowl – a figure estimated to be roughly 250 tonnes. In order to capture this amount of carbon, 1,000 trees will have to be planted, so the club are hoping their team will hit 100 boundaries during home matches across the competition.

Check the bottom of each home T20 match report to see how the team are doing.

Words: Simon Vincent
Images: NJM Photography

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