Brighton & Hove City Clubs

Report by John Bettridge:

Junior Martlets 162 for 8 (40 overs) Mason Robinson 45, Toby Shepperson 21, Lex Wills 20.

Brighton & Hove Invitation XI 166 for 8 (37.3 overs) Ben Heber 2 for 13, Nathan Cooper 2 for 35, Greg Iago 2 for 35, Toby Shepperson 3 for 38

Leg spin being launched!

The weather threatened and then relented to give us a beautiful afternoon for cricket at Hurst as we watched the dark clouds skirt around us. The Junior Martlets batted first but did not find scoring particularly easy. Helped by the extras column in the book Mason Robinson and Ash Kumar navigated the team to 46 before Ash was caught. Mason moved on and played some fine shots and looked set for a high score before playing a bit early as too many did to put up a catch. Towards the end Lex Wills and the captain Ben Heber as well as Nathan Cooper tried to move us towards a defendable total.

Was 162 going to enough? It was going to be a tough ask to bowl a side out for that. Nathan Cooper and Callum Drew opened the attack and bowled tightly to keep the door open. The joint spin attack of off spin and leg break from Ben Heber and Toby Shepperson was a nagging force that held the Invitation XI at bay while removing the middle order in the process. With their spells over Greg Iago came into the attack to remove their tom scorer with his first ball. Things were looking interesting with the score now at 107 for 7 with 10 overs remaining. Although Greg took another wicket, the number 8 batsman started to take the game from us to stage a fine recovery for the Invitation side.

This was an exciting low scoring game during which the pendulum kept swinging. My thanks to Matt Parsons for gathering the Invitation side for yet another find contest.

Some excellent legside work by Mason Robinson

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