Umpires: Rob Bellerby & Allan Hansen
Scorers: Kacey Arran and Kate Griffiths
Venue: Neyland Hub Community Centre
In this week’s games Neyland A marched on with victory over their B team by a huge margin in a match where there were a few vital fielding errors but also some excellent catches and run outs, and a little bit of tension between two competitive teams.
In another club derby, Pembroke Dock A beat their depleted B team, who sadly could only muster five players, and Llanrhian accounted for Haverfordwest, who also played with a man short.
Match One – Neyland A (137 for 5) beat Neyland B (44 for 3)
Neyland A’s massive total featured a cracking undefeated innings of 72 from opener Paul Murray to confirm his status as one of the top three batsmen in the competition, although ‘Minty’ would be the first to admit that when he’s scored only 3 runs his brother Steve dropped a very difficult catch behind the wicket.Rob Bellerby (14) was the first A team batsman to depart from a superb piece of footwork by Rod Murphy, who raced in from the offside and landed the ball onto the stumps with his trusty right boot that Gareth Bale would have been proud of!
Then Ross Hardy, still coming to terms with the need of indoor batting, launched a screamer of an off-drive off Lewis Page but could only watch in disbelief as George Evans coolly held on to a missile of a shot.
Andrew Miller, making a welcome return to action with the Hannon twins unavoidably unavailable, looked at his best until at 19 he pushed the ball into the offside but saw the bails fly at the bowler’s end from a magnificent throw by Tom Pritchard.
Brad McDermott-Jenkins (15) looked good until he missed a canny slow ball from Steve Murray and was bowled neck and crop before Jack John was run out for 7.
But Paul Murray was relentless in taking his team forward with five fours and two sixes until he was caught off the final delivery, which was belatedly adjudged to be too high and there was then an appeal for a run out, followed by considerable debate about the fact that he was allowed to continue and stroke another boundary to add insult to injury!
Neyland B started quite well to reach 27 for 1 in three overs, despite opener Lewis Page departing for 7, neatly stumped by Paul Murray off Jack John, with George Evans and Steve Murray moving smoothly to 11 apiece before Evans gave a return catch to Andrew Miller and Murray was caught at mid-off by Brad McDermott-Jenkins.
And that’s when a sort of go-slow occurred as Tom Pritchard dropped anchor and Rod Murphy had relatively little of the strike so that Neyland B scored only 11 runs in six overs, with Pritchard finishing on 10 not out and Murphy on 3 not out to give their A team victory by 93 runs!
Match Two – Pembroke Dock B (87 all out) lost to Pembroke Dock A (88 for 3)
Pembroke A confirmed the form book with victory over their B team but they were pushed hard and the fact that they only had five players certainly helped the senior squad in an entertaining tussle played in great spirit and with great laughter included whenever A team skipper Scott Griffiths made one of his ridiculously loud and sustained appeals before both umpires quietly answered ‘not out’!
The B team started well with 50 coming off the first five overs but they lost Luke Murray (bowled by Griffiths for 10) and Kingdom (caught for 6 by Grimwood off Rhys Daley) – but Adam Phillips batted really well for his 40 before he was last out.
Griffiths finished with 2 for 13, including a rare wicket-maiden) and Rhys Daley supported with 2 for 25 alongside Grimwood’s miserly 0 for 8 in his two overs as the B team finally reached 87 all out, having struck three boundaries and 18 threes, but having missed out on 22 ‘dot balls’.
When the A team batted Griffiths (26) showed his batting skills to the full as he joined Grimwood (27) in reaching the retirement target of 25 as opener Neil Gregory contributed 17 before falling to a superb low diving catch off his own bowling by Peter Kingdom.
George Smith (3) departed early and Rhys Daley was dismissed last ball for 11, having attempted a rather adventurous late sweep off Kingdom but giving keeper Luke Murray an easy catch as Kingdom finished with 2 for 31 and Connor Carroll claimed 1 for 6 as he bowled Smith.
It meant that Euan McDonald came in to face one delivery and score the necessary single as his team won with only 6.2 overs used.
Match Three – Llanrhian (121 for 3) beat Haverfordwest (92 all out)
Llanrhian won with something in hand over Haverfordwest, who could only muster five players but showed a vast improvement on their previous performance, when they were dismissed for only 25 runs – and played their part against a now-experienced Llanrhian side where everyone plays a part.
Llanrhian batted first and opener Daf Williams was again showing why he is the league’s top scorer as he quickly reached the retirement score and came back later to finish with 35 not out alongside Jon Strawbridge, who is also adept at this indoor game, reaching 27 before retiring.
Iwan James (bowled for15), Tom Clarke (run out for 23) and Karl Davies (bowled for 10) came and went before Llinos Williams ended up with 6 not out in a big score, with the never-say-die spirit showing for The Town through Ashley James (1 for 19) and Will Phillips (1 for 17), assisted by Jason Stobbs, Dan Hopley and skipper Chris Phillips.
Haverfordwest made a confident start to their reply as Dan Hopley (removed by Llinos Williams for 18) and Phillips (run out for 16) opened their account and James showed his prowess as a straight hitter and good runner between the wickets before retiring on 25.
But Stobbs (bowled by Tom Clark for 7) and skipper Phillips (on 10 when he was caught by Clarke off Daf Williams were out before James was finally run out in the inevitable late chase for runs to earn Llanrhian a victory that certainly keeps them in serious contention for the end of season play-offs.
