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When Twenty20 becomes Five5

Friday, July 9 2004

Rain meant the first 5 over a side game in Cricket history came into play.

Northampton was the venue for possibly the most bizarre game of Cricket in living memory. 6-a-side Tournaments feature both sides facing 5 overs, but tonight we saw 2 sides of 11 players facing off over 5 overs.

In truth, the match was over after Jon Lewis's first over, the bowler picking up 2 wickets for only 2 runs. Although the hosts recovered, mainly thanks to Martin van Jaarsveld, a fine over to close by James Averis left the target at 43.
Craig Spearman batted through the innings, although he only managed 2 runs, as Tim Hancock brushed off a fine opening over from Carl Greenidge to steer his side to a win with 5 balls to spare.

It was a much more run-filled game at Headingley, where Brad Hodge (2 sixes and 10 fours) and Darren Maddy (6 sixes and 8 fours) hammered an amazing 167 for the first wicket, as Leicestershire piled on the runs. To their credit, Yorkshire fought back, mainly through Phil Jaques (5 sixes and 9 fours), but although Anthony McGrath and Tim Bresnan played breezy knocks, wickets continued to fall, and they ended up 10 runs short.

Dominic Cork bowled a fine tight spell on his return to Derby although it was the spinners, led by Dinesh Mongia, who did the damage as Derbyshire could only amass 142 from their 20 overs.
Mongia then shone with the bat with a quick-fire half-century that meant that in spite of 3 wickets from Mohammad Ali, Lancashire won with almost 3 overs to spare.

Finally it was spin that did the trick for Warwickshire at Cardiff. After a tidy display by the Glamorgan attack restricted the Bears to 152-9 from their 20 overs, Dougie Brown employed 11 overs of spin in reply, even turning to the very occasional Jim Troughton on a slow wicket. The main beneficiary was wicket-keeper Tony Frost, who effected an astonishing 4 stumpings as, apart from the veteran Matthew Maynard, the home side had no answer to Brad Hogg and co.


DERBYSHIRE 142-4 [Moss 39(26), Bassano 30(36), Mongia 2-15(4), Keedy 1-24(4), Cork 0-23(4)] lost to LANCASHIRE 144-5 [Mongia 50(34), Loye 32(23), Law 31(28), Ali 3-27(4)] by 5 wickets.
GLAMORGAN 126 [Maynard 53(31), Hogg 4-30(4), Brown 2-5(1), Troughton 2-10(3)] lost to WARWICKSHIRE 152-9 [Hogg 34(34), Davies 2-23(4), S Thomas 2-33(4), Cosker 2-35(4)] by 26 runs.
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 42-5 [van Jaarsveld 27(14), Averis 3-7(1), Lewis 2-2(1)] lost to GLOUCESTERSHIRE 44-2 [Hancock 28(13), Greenidge 1-1(1)] by 8 wickets.
YORKSHIRE 211-6 [Jaques 92(49), Bresnan 42(27), McGrath 37(20), Cleary 3-43(4)] lost to LEICESTERSHIRE 221-3 [Maddy 111(60), Hidge 78(49), Kirby 2-37(4)] by 10 runs.

Posted by Marc