Writing off the NCL2? - Hampshire defeat

Some Backbone
By Grockle
May 25 2003

It seems that the rumours about us not taking the NCL2 seriously are true. Or at least they had better be on the basis of this pitiful performance! No teeth in the bowling, no spine in the batting, no points once again!

v HAMPSHIRE @ The Rosebowl May 25 2003

SCORECARD

Concentration on the Championship and C&G (well until Thursday at least) continues.  Nixon McLean is rested once again and Johnson's groin injury means he will not bowl in anger before the Surrey game...if at all.  Matt Wood and Peter Bowler sit out and Steffan Jones, Keith Parsons and Carl Gazzard return for the one day game.  Will our lack of 'strike' be obvious again?  Well, nothing seems to have changed so we ought to expect it will...unless the bowlers have worked something out in the past week.  We shall have to see.

The home side win the toss and decide to bat.  A slightly surprising decision given the chance of rain but they obviously know what they are doing because Kenway and Crawley see off the initial attack with little problem. Francis and Andrew still don't seem to have that killing instinct in the early overs - Andrew looks sharp but not that dangerous.  Blackwell finally gets Crawley stumped but the opening pair have put on 138.

Too many singles allowed.  Last week there were far too many singles allowed by fielders waiting for the man to come iin from the boundary rather than attacking the ball.  It seems that the same was allowed this week.  Katich arrives and the five/six an over is still going on.  This is a 200 run pitch and we don't seem able to keep Hampshire down to that.  They pass it before we get our next wicket at 226 with Kenway leaving to Francis for 115.  Although Jonah gets Mascarenhas quite quickly (bowled) Katich has passed 50 and Hampshire end on 248 - far too many.

Gareth Andrew did well with 6/2/21 and Jonah had a better week but is still off his best.  KP went for 27 off 5 and although Frankie got a wicket, he went for 53 off his spell.  The spinners were tried but they went for 92 off their combined 16 overs.  It's not good enough to win one day games - 248 runs for only 3 wickets gives them the case to make lots of runs in the second half and doesn't keep them under pressure.

The batsmen faced a big score, but they had done it last week.   There was also the possibility of rain and the D/L to look forward to.   Gazzard and Cox came out to work like the Notts game but Carl G went at 22 to ex-England Giddens (whatever happened to him?).  Wasim Akram was at the other end but it was Giddens who hit again at 45 bowling Bryant for 8.  When Cox went at 60 to Mascarenhas the game was almost gone and after Burns became Mascarenhas' second at 74 and then Blackwell was bowled by Mullally for 3, Dutch going first ball to Mascarenhas was inevitable and we were waiting for the final chop to end the game!

Parsons went at 81 (Mascarenhas again!) but once again, Rob Turner held up proceedings, aided by Andrew.  We even passed 100 before Gareth was C&B Katich at 122.  Francis lasted to 125 (Udal) and Jones put up a struggle and nearly got us to 149 before Katich had him caught by....Mascarenhas to end it all.   Turner undefeated again for 27 and top scorer but nothing else.  Not massively threatening bowling, just poor shot selection.  We lose by 99 runs and now have 4 defeats to our victory - the NCL is dead and the only thing we can look forward to is getting in the top 4 because if we don't we'll be facing county opposition in next year's C&G first round!  On this performance, we won't be going into the C&G as finalists, we won't get past Surrey in a month of Sundays - not looking forward to Wednesday on our present one day performances.

We have done this before though and we can only hope for the return of some bowlers who take wickets and batsmen with a bit of backbone!  Poor Poor Poor!