SWAN GREEN vs HYTHE 2ND XI

Hants Reg South West 2

Saturday 10th July

PROMOTION HOPES DASHED AT SWAN GREEN

Ewan BELL - 37

Hythe and Dibden Second XI fell to a narrow defeat at Swan Green on Saturday to effectively end their promotion hopes. Despite bowling the hosts out for an under-par total of 159, the Green Caps could only muster 139 in reply as they came up short.

The disappointment on skipper Mike Bowmans face was clear to see after the game but hopefully the boys will bounce back in the Cup Final on Friday night.

After losing the toss, things began well for Hythe as the opening pair of Rob Saunders and Russell Moore picked up early wickets. Saunders struck in his first over while Moore struck in his second as Hythe reduced Swan Green to 7-2.

Both continued well and when Saunders picked up two more wickets the score had reached a precarious 26-4. Unfortunately for Hythe, D Tasker and in particularly G McClaren quickly re-built the host’s innings with a 77 run partnership. McClaren in particular taking an aggressive approach to score a quick fifty against Saunders and Ian White before Mike Edwards finally clean bowled him.

Edwards then cut through the Swan Green tail recording fine figures of 4-29 as Hythe took control of the game. At the other end Wayne Effeny finally dismissed Tasker when he was well caught on the boundary by Luke Mills after he had compiled a chanceless fifty.

A run out for the last wicket saw the innings end on 159 with the Hythe fielders’ content with their work.

In reply, things got off to a bad start. After two maidens against the impressive seam of Tasker and spin of Matthews, both then took wicket maidens as Hythe’s opening batsmen returned to the pavilion with ducks against their names.

It didn’t get much better for the Green Caps as the spells of Tasker and Matthews cut through the Hythe top order. With Effeny, Edwards and Mills also back in the changing room quickly the visitors had crumbled to 22-5.

Before the end of their 10 over spells Tasker dismissed James Page as well to leave Hythe six down at twenty overs; Tasker recording 10-3-25-4 and Matthews 10-4-18-2.

Ewan Bell and Gary Howe then began a re-building job for Hythe with Howe counter-attacking to keep the visitors up with the run rate. When Howe was dismissed for a fine 32 Bell then formed another partnership with Russell Moore as the Green Caps fought to stay in the game.

Unfortunately, it would prove too much as Bell was caught for 37 before Moore departed soon after to leave the task to Ian White and Rob Saunders. They took the game to the last couple of overs but with the run rate ever-increasing Saunders was finally run out by a direct hit as Hythe fell 20 runs short

Innings of : SWAN GREEN 159 All Out (35.2 Overs)

Hythe Bowling

Innings of : HYTHE 139 All Out (40.2 Overs)

Swan Green Bowling

 RESULT : SWAN GREEN (22pts) Beat HYTHE (9pts) by 20 Runs