Southampton Oval (St David’s won toss): Southampton Rangers beat St David’s by four wickets

St David’s have all but surrendered their Twenty20 title after a second loss to Southampton Rangers and third overall this season, going down by four wickets in an exciting, high-scoring match at Southampton Oval on Sunday.

It has been a difficult week for the club who replaced Chris Douglas as captain and Kameron Fox as coach, with Justin Pitcher and Lionel Cann sharing the T20 and 50-overs League captaincy while George Cannonier is back at the helm as coach.

St David’s posted a challenging 160 in their 20 overs with Rangers replying with 161 for six after scoring the required six runs for victory in the last over. It was an impressive fightback for Rangers, who suffered a shock loss to Cleveland last weekend.

“If we were to apply ourselves and play decent cricket, I thought it was an easy score to chase on a small field,” said captain Dion Stovell afterwards. “I never thought we were going to lose, I just think that in the middle overs, sometimes we don’t rotate the strike as we should.”

Rangers, needing to score at eight runs an over, opened their innings with Stovell and Janeiro Tucker, but when Tucker was dismissed in the third over, caught at long-off on 31 for one and Stovell was bowled next over by Sheldon Caesar, St David’s were in early control. Rangers had a let-off in that same Caesar over when Ricardo Brangman was dropped by Delyone Bordon at backward point, a hard chance above his head.

“We took a difficult decision by opening with me and Janeiro to try to put some pressure on St David’s, who have a decent bowling attack and decent team as well,” Stovell added. “They did the same thing with us, trying to exploit the powerplay overs.”

St David’s struck again in the fifth over when captain Pitcher bowled Malachi Jones in his first over from the bank end. Three balls later he struck again, bowling Shannon Rayner, as Rangers moved to 72 for four after ten overs.

In the next over, Macai Simmons went for 15 runs, including two sixes, before Brangman hit him for two straight sixes in his next over to bring up the Rangers hundred. Brangman was bowled next ball to make it 104 for five after 13 overs. Brangman had earlier been dropped by Lionel Cann on the long-on boundary.

Charles Trott and Tre Manders kept Rangers in the hunt before Trott was run out by Douglas at the bowler’s end, going for a second run but beaten by OJ Pitcher’s throw from mid-on. Rangers still needed 32 runs from the last three overs to claim victory, as St David’s missed a run-out chance in the eighteenth over when Justin Pitcher failed to collect the ball cleanly at mid-on with Deunte Darrell halfway down the crease before Manders sent him back.

In the next over, Pitcher, the bowler, failed to catch a wide throw from OJ Pitcher to run out Manders. However, Justin Pitcher did get his man next ball when Manders stepped out of his crease in Pitcher’s delivery stride and was Mankaded.

Darrell carried on the run chase with some good batting in the last two overs, after he was put down by Allan Douglas Jr to a skied shot at mid-on in the penultimate over with six runs still needed.

Darrell got a single before two inside edges, one that went for four, sealed the win for Rangers to make up for that loss to Cleveland last weekend.

“When you get complacent, that’s the type of thing that happens,” Stovell said. “I thought last week’s loss to Cleveland was just bad, but it’s one of those things that happens in cricket. Our guys just didn’t show up to play.

“Today was a good win on Father’s Day, now everybody can go out and enjoy the weekend.”

• Editor’s note: neither the scorecard nor individual details were made available by either club