Congratulations to all involved in this game and especially the 3 representatives from Turgis!
Hampshire's disability squad travelled to Birmingham for the national final recently. A long coach journey in the fog on Sunday morning saw the team arrive at Walmley CC at 11am. The toss was won by Cheshire who elected to bowl on a flat but very wet wicket. As the drizzle came down the start was briefly delayed. Great patches of mud on the outfield greeted the fielders as they set about
bowling the 40 allotted overs. The Hants opening pair made an excellent start reaching 90 -0 in quick time. Ian Rogers was the first to go being given out LBW for a solid 26. His opening partner Gavin Randall, went on to make 81 before being bowled by the Cheshire skipper. This brought about a flurry of wickets with the rest of the batsmen struggling with the conditions. A couple more umpiring decisions went the way of the fielding side and Hants were bowled out for
a competitive 142.
After lunch it was Cheshire's turn to bat, in now improving conditions, to chase down the 143 needed for victory. Again the openers proved hard to remove and moved the score to 63 before losing a wicket. Hants lively attack of Rob Wallace and Randall made runs hard to come by and the scoring rate was fairly slow. Skipper Martin Turvey regularly changed the attack round and all bowlers put in fine displays. Accurate spells from Dan West, Jamie Legg, Hugo Hammond and Paul Massey brought regular wickets. This coupled with 3 superb catches in the deep from West and Randall and some excellent groung fielding from all the team made things very tense.
The game was finely balanced with Cheshire at 117 - 7. Then one the tailenders batted as only tailenders can and scored a quick 20. This meant Cheshire needed 6 to win from the remaining 4 overs. Wallace took a wicket making it 137 - 8. 3 of the last 4 overs were maidens thus leaving 5 to be scored off 6 balls. Hammond was given the ball and bowled excellently, belying his young age. The batsman at no. 10 (who had hardly hit the ball off the square previously) took a swipe and it went for 4 just eluding the hands of Randall at mid wicket. Cheshire won by 2 wkts.
In the summing up at the presentation ceremony it was stated what a magnificent game it had been in difficult
conditions. It had been a great advert for the game at any level but particularly as every player had a disability
of some sort. Medals were given to all.
Hampshire :- Martin Turvey (capt) - Ian Rogers (wk) - Gavin Randall - Dan West - Sam Graham - Lee Jay - Hugo Hammond - Paul Massey - Jon Wallace - Rob Wallace - Jamie Legg. 12th man Jamie Petch.