South East Wales Cricket League

Division One

SUDBROOK Firsts paid the price for some indifferent bowling and fielding as they lost by 20 runs at home to Miskin Manor at Mill Lane on Saturday, writes Bob Cypher.

Home skipper Jamie Watkins won the toss and invited recently-relegated Miskin to bat first, a decision that seemed the correct one as some impressive bowling reduced them to 70-7.

The stand-out bowling performance came from Dean Wallace who picked up 3-17 from his 10 overs.

Watkins took 3-37, Mitchell Slape 1-33 and Scott O’Leary 2-44, but Miskin kept the scoreboard ticking by building good lower order stands.

Those, coupled with some indifferent bowling and fielding, allowed Miskin to post a very respectable 199 all out.

Even that total seemed well within Sudbrook’s range on a drying outfield.

“At the halfway point we were obviously disappointed with the way their innings finished, however we knew 200 was a score we could chase on a decent wicket,” Watkins said later.

“For the second week running our openers gave a us a perfect platform with another half century partnership, but once Matthew Spencer fell for 34, and Ross Lewis went on 37 our innings stuttered through the middle overs, losing wickets at regular intervals.

“Only Greg Shaw (30) offered any resistance and we slumped to 150-9 with five overs remaining.

“Mitchell Slape struck some late blows to take the score to 179 off 47.2 overs before we were finally dismissed.

“It was disappointing to let some promising positions slip and not push on from last week's away win, but we won’t dwell on it too much, we’ll be working hard with our coach during nets Wednesday to improve in certain areas, and look to bounce back next Saturday when we travel to Cardiff Gymkhana.”