Hampshire, Derbyshire win thrillers by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Ground:	Whitgift School, Croydon, The Rose Bowl, Southampton
Scorecard:	Surrey v Derbyshire, Hampshire v Yorkshire
Player:	GM Smith, GT Park, CJL Rogers, CP Schofield, MJ Brown, AD Mascarenhas, JHK Adams, MJ Lumb, AW Gale, JA Rudolph
Event:	NatWest Pro40 League 2009

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DateLine: 6th August 2009

 

Division One

 

Hampshire held their nerve as they squeezed past Yorkshire in a last ball thriller. Chasing 233, Hampshire needed the very last ball of their innings to complete overhaul the target and condemn Yorkshire to another defeat.

 

Earlier Yorkshire had won the toss and elected to bat first. Riding on skipper Rudolph's 79 and Gale's 54, Yorkshire posted a challenging total of 232 in their 40 overs. The bowlers found it very difficult to contain both the batsmen as they found the boundaries when needed and also kept the scoreboard ticking with the ones and twos. Adam Lyth looked dangerous and was inflicting some heavy damage to the psyche of Hampshire bowlers when Mascarenhas out of no where effected a brilliant run-out to send Lyth back to the pavilion. Brophy and Pyrah threw their bat around to take the score past the 200-run mark.

 

Chasing 233 to win, Lumb and Adams once again provided a blazing start to the innings as they put on an opening stand of 95 in good time before the latter got out attempting another ambitious shot. Lumb (53) then departed having brought up his half-century as he nicked one behind off the bowling of David Wainwright and slowly the momentum was lost. But Ervine and Mascarenhas pulled Hampshire back into the contest with some lusty blows before Dawson kept his cool to see Hampshire through.

 

Division Two

 

Derbyshire chased a record total down as they beat Surrey by by four wickets in the final over.

 

Earlier Surrey had won the toss and elected to bat first in the process scoring a mammoth 282 in their 40 overs. Opener Brown provided the impetus as he wreaked havoc on the hapless Derbyshire bowlers. Stewart Walters (28) looked set for a long haul before he was run out, while a fourth-wicket stand of 93 between Usman Afzaal (43) and Schofield maintained momentum.

 

Derbyshire in reply was off to a flier with Chris Rogers and Park giving some of the treatment that the Surrey batsmen had given their bowlers. The bowlers could only watch in pain as even the good balls disappeared to the fence. Park played a perfect second fiddle for Rogers and Smith as they added 78 and 98 for the first and second wicket respectively.

 

He fell for 64 to Schofield, leaving Derbyshire needing 67 off the final 10 overs. When Smith (77) departed Surrey might have heaved a sigh of relief but Derbyshire's seventh-wicket pairing of Sadler and Tom Poynton then took their team past the line.