A lovely evening and perfect conditions to watch a game of cricket. Hampshire went into the game after having lost their last T20 at Taunton by just one run second in the table looking to get back to winning in this format.
Hampshire won the toss and decided to bat first on a good pitch with a short boundary towards the Ingleby-Mckenzie stand. Owais Shah was left out for Danny Briggs who missed the last game due to paternity leave.
First over Carberry played out a maiden to David Payne and struggled to get going and was out for just 5. James Vince at the other end left on from his 240 at Essex started blasting it and along with Jimmy Adams they took Hampshire up to 52 before Vince fell trying one big hit too many on the last ball of the power-play.
Maxwell joined Adams and they kept the momentum going with Maxwell hitting two huge sixes into the hotel end. Maxwell was bowled by Tom Smith for 30 off just 18 balls when the score was 120-3. Ervine, Wheater, Smith and Wood all came in and helped the Adams to get the total up to 180-6 at the innings break. Adams top scored with 69 of 61 balls and special mention should go to his aggressive running between the wickets. He turned ones into twos and twos into threes. This was to prove invaluable later on as 180 was an ok score but not an impossible one for Glos to reach
The reply started well and Alex Gidman and Michael Klinger gave the innings a good platform getting to 61 in the 9th over. The innings changed here with Will Smith getting two wickers in an over. The innings went nowhere and for the next five overs Hampshire were well on top.
Matt Coles struck twice in the 12th over and with Smith getting his third wicket followed by a run out in the 15th over. Gloucestershire needed 74 runs to win with just 30 balls to go. Here Hampshire old boy Benny Howell with Tom Smith gave Hampshire a real fright. 46 runs were blasted off three overs from Briggs, Wood and Abbott and the target became 28 off two overs. A decent Wood over conceding 8 in the 19th meant 21 were needed off the last over.
I felt that this would be easy enough but when three consecutive 4s were hit to make it 8 off 3, I and the rest of the 7000 crowd felt we had thrown it away. Fortunately the next ball was just a single and the following ball the batsman attempted to steal but Howell was ran out. This meant the new man in McCarter had to hit the last ball of the match for 6 to win. He failed and they ran three giving Hampshire an exciting 2 run victory
The victory meant Hampshire stayed second in the south group as Essex had their own narrow victory over Middlesex last night. For a T20 game that was a very good game and shows that it’s never quite over no matter the situation.
Ian
How-it-Seams 