Email Us Forum Mail Article Print Article

Bowlers star in Twenty20.

Tuesday, July 13 2004

Northamptonshire and Middlesex's bowlers dominated the opposition to set up wins for their counties.

Right from the first overs in both games, the team batting first were in trouble.

For Warwickshire, Neil Carter hammered 3 boundaries in the first over, but fell to his 6th ball as the Bears collapsed from 14-0 to 36-5 in the face of great bowling from Carl Greenidge and Johann Louw. A recovery fashioned by Ian Trott and Trevor Penney pushed them up to 123-8 from their 20 overs, but it was unlikely to be enough in spite of Dougie Brown's early strike in the reply.
Although Warwickshire picked up wickets, Brad Hogg in particular was outstanding yet again, the target was not overly taxing, and Graham Swann swung lustily at Mark Wagh's off-spin to bring victory with a six and an over to spare.

Essex were also in early trouble as Simon Cook took 2 wickets in consecutive balls to reduce them to 9-2, and although Andy Flower batted very sedately to add some stability to the innings, Middlesex were on top, and kept the score to just 120-8 from 20 overs.
Middlesex's progress to victory was steady, and they lost only 1 wicket in easing home with 10 balls to spare, Paul Weekes and Owais Shah with an unbeaten 99-run stand.


MIDDLESEX 121-1 [Weekes 55*(65), Shah 48*(38), Brant 0-9(3), Middlebrook 0-13(3)] beat ESSEX 120-8 [Flower 47(51), Cook 2-17(4), Hutton 2-21(4), Klusener 2-32(4), Betts 1-13(4)] by 9 wickets.
WARWICKSHIRE 123-7 [Trott 39(31), Penney 32*(33), Louw 2-6(4), Greenidge 2-22(4), Phillips 2-24(4)] lost to NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 125-6 [Swann 35*(26), Hogg 3-12(4), Brown 1-15(4), Giles 0-13(3)] by 4 wickets.

Posted by Marc