Penn Street vs Jordans T20

Jordans 165-6 (C. Yolland 35, B. Cross 2-14, J. Tollerfield 2-15)

Penn Street 157-6 (B. Cross 47, M. Way 2-21)

After a week of a warm dry weather, conditions were perfectly set up for an exciting game at Penn Street on Friday evening against Jordans Taverners.

Overcast, humid conditions meant that Penn Street elected won the toss and elected to bowl first, hoping to make the most of favourable swing bowling conditions. Hewlett and Ar. White took the new ball but both struggled to find their line as a result of the prodigious movement through the air. Ben Cross then took a turn at attempting to control the swinging ball and found immediate success, although it could be said that ‘poor bowling gets wickets', a wide full toss bringing a catch for Archie White. Cross struck again in his third over with another loose ball drawing a poor stroke and a good catch for Jeremy Knox. Taking wickets from bad balls does not take away from an excellent performance for Cross, finishing with figure of 4-0-2-14. Jamie Fryer and Chris Lovewell struggled to find their rhythm but Harry Leitch proved effective in his 2 overs, earning figures of 2-0-2-25, including the wicket of their big hitting all rounder. Knox and Josh Tollerfield bowled well at the death, mixing up their pace and length to good effect. Penn Street will look back on the 44 runs in wides as an area for improvement for their next T20 game.

Penn Street got their innings off to an awful start as Tollerfield could only spoon a ball of short length to square leg. Sempill, in at 3, managed to steady the ship finding a boundary and a single from the remainder of the first over. Sempill (29) and Dave Jones (6) managed a partnership of 22 from the first 4 overs before Jones was caught. This brought Ben Cross (47) to the crease who immediately set about working the ball into spaces and clubbing bad deliveries to the boundary. He and Sempill put on a third wicket stand of 72 before Sempill was bowled by Ash Turney with a quick Yorker in increasingly gloomy conditions in the the 12th over. Knox (9) came and went, not before an impressive 6 over extra cover and Fryer made a good 12 before also falling to a suspect LBW decision given by Dave ‘Daddy’ Jones. Cross was eventually bowled 3 runs short of his half century, earning him to player of the match but tantalising short of PSCC’s target. Ady White (4*) and Matt Hewlett (12*) found themselves needing 21 from the final 3 overs but Jordan’s managed to dry up the runs, leaving themselves 8 runs short.

A good game, and we'll look forward to our double header of game with Jordans at the beginning of July.