St George’s 95

Somerset 98-6

Somerset cruised to a comfortable four-wicket win over Cup Match rivals St George’s in a low-scoring Premier Division Twenty20 affair at Wellington Oval yesterday.

Greg Maybury Jr and Terence Corday claimed six wickets between them to help dismiss the home side for 95 in 16.5 overs.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Jade Morrissey then led the run chase with an aggressive 33 while Chris Douglas (17), Alje Richardson (15) and Jerez Eve (13) all chipped in with useful contributions to see the visitors safely across the line with 23 balls to spare.

Maybury made the breakthrough with the very first ball of the match after St George’s had won the toss and elected to take first strike on an uneven track.

The fast bowler ripped Treadwell Gibbons’s middle and off stumps out of the ground with a vicious yorker.

St George’s overcame the early setback with captain Onias Bascome (33) and Allan Douglas (20) picking the gaps with some aggressive and clinical stroke play.

However, once the pair departed in the space of five balls, St George’s completely came undone at the seams as their remaining seven wickets fell for just 36 runs.

Fourth-change bowler Corday was the catalyst behind the hosts massive collapse as he exploited a deteriorating pitch to lethal effect.

Corday opened his account when he pushed back Macai Simmons’s off stump with a ball that kept low.

He then struck again four overs later when he held Temiko Wilson, the St George’s wicketkeeper, off of his own bowling and trapped Jubari Darrell leg-before on the way to a double wicket maiden in the thirteenth over.

Corday, who also had a run-out, then claimed the wicket of Smith two overs later to finish with impressive figures of four for 13.

Maybury picked up another wicket in his second spell to finish with two for 24 while Richardson, captain Jordan DeSilva and Dalin Richardson took one each.

Next high man for St George’s was the 12 runs Somerset leaked in extras, which included five wides.

Somerset got off to a blistering start in their reply with Douglas lashing boundaries off of the first two balls of the innings sent down by Detroy Smith. The left-handed batsman hammered the first ball to the square leg boundary before launching the next over the bowler’s head straight down the ground to set the tempo.

St George’s made the breakthrough in the fourth over when Douglas mistimed a pull shot and was grabbed at short long-on off the bowling of Simmons.

However, the visitors quickly got back on top of the bowling with Morrissey and Alje Richardson, the son of Somerset coach Jeff Richardson, adding 30 runs for the second wicket to keep their team on track.

The flourishing partnership ended when Douglas held a difficult running catch off of his own bowling to dislodge Richardson, who appeared well set.

St George’s then tightened the screws when left-arm spinner Isaiah Greaves dismissed Dalin Richardson and Somerset captain DeSilva cheaply in his first over as the visitors slumped to 65 for four in the tenth over.

The game was interestingly poised when Morrissey was run out by Greaves at the non-striker’s end attempting another single.

However, Eve and Maybury added a timely 17 runs for the sixth wicket to steady the ship.

Eve was the last wicket to fall with Somerset two runs shy of victory when he was run out attempting a single that was never on.

It was perhaps only fitting for Maybury (9) to serve the last rites albeit with an outside edge off of a Simmons ball that raced down to the vacant third man boundary.

Greaves was the pick of the St George’s bowling with two for 12 while Simmons and Douglas had one each.

The game was not without controversy as tempers flared between Simmons and Eve late in Somerset’s innings with team-mates having to step in to prevent matters from escalating.

SCORECARD

St George’s

T Gibbons b Maybury 0

A Douglas c A Richardson b DeSilva 20

*Onias Bascome b I Richardson 33

Oronde Bascome run out 2

M Simmons b Corday 7

†T Wilson c and b Corday 5

D Smith b Corday 7

J Darrell lbw b Corday 0

I Greaves c and b D Richardson 2

J Carlington not out 4

R Richards c D Richardson b Maybury 3

Extras (b 2, lb 5, w 5) 12

Total (16.5 overs) 95

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-45, 3-59, 4-65, 5-69, 6-80, 7-80, 8-83, 9-89.

Bowling: Maybury 2.5-0-24-2; I Richardson 2-0-19-1; A Richardson 1-0-2-0; DeSilva 2-0-16-1; Johnson 4-0-11-0; Corday 4-1-13-4; D Richardson 1-0-3-1.

Somerset

C Douglas c Gibbons b Simmons 17

+J Morrissey run out 33

A Richardson c and b Douglas 15

D Richardson lbw b Greaves 1

*J DeSilva b Greaves 1

J Eve run out 13

G Maybury not out 9

I Richardson not out 0

Extras (lb 1, w 7, nb 1) 9

Total (6 wkts; 16.1 overs) 98

M Johnson, S Burgess and T Corday did not bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-27, 2-57, 3-59, 4-65, 5-77, 6-94

Bowling: Smith 2-0-24-0; Simmons 3.1-0-17-1; Onias Bascome 1-0-6-0; Gibbons 3-0-21-0; Douglas 4-0-17-1; Greaves 3-0-12-2.

Umpires: E Carrington and C Waldron.