Friday, May 10th, 2019

RAPIDS GO UNDER IN ROYAL LONDON ONE-DAY CUP QUARTER-FINAL

worcestershire rapids went down by 147 runs in their royal london one-day cup quarter-final clash with somerset at New Road.

the rapids were set a 338 target after tom banton hit his list a best score of 112 with wayne parnell and pat brown both picking up three wickets.

parnell took his wicket tally for the competition to 22 with figures of 3-50 from 10 overs.

the rapids were bowled out for 190 in 38 overs with daryl mitchell (34) and ross whiteley (33) top-scoring.

somerset were put into bat on a fresh wicket by rapids skipper brett d’oliveira.

the new ball pairing of brown and charlie morris both probing initial spells with the initial 10 over powerplay costing just 38 runs.

banton, whose brother jacques is a member of the worcestershire academy, survived two chances when on four and 18 off brown to callum ferguson at first slip, the initial one a difficult head high attempt and the second a low effort.

parnell made the initial breakthrough with 66 on the board in the 14th over as azhar ali caught was off the inside edge by keeper ben cox away to his left.

banton was full of inventive strokes and he ‘ramped’ whiteley for six to bring up the century stand in 16 overs with peter trego.

a single off mitchell took the 20-year-old to three figures from 95 balls with three sixes and 11 fours.

brown struck in his first over back into the attack as trego (37) went for a pull and bottom edged through to cox.

banton went past his previous best list a score of 107 versus kent in the opening one-day cup match of the season.

but on 112 he became a second victim of parnell as brown held onto the chance at deep square leg with the total 203-3 in the 35th over.

ed barnard made his presence felt by accounting for james hildreth (38) and then holding onto two sharp chances at point and long on to dispose of tom abell (20) and lewis gregory (8) off parnell and morris respectively.

george bartlett (4) holed out to long on off brown who then held onto a sharp return chance offered by roleof van der merwe (13).

but some late hitting by craig overton lifted the final total to 337-8.

morris ended with figures of 9-1-45-1, brown 10-0-80-3, barnard 9-0-68-1, parnell 10-0-50-3, mitchell 10-0-60-3, d’oliveira 1-0-12-0 and whiteley 1-0-10-0.

when worcestershire batted, riki wessels (16) drove craig overton to point and, after tom fell (22) was lbw to lewis gregory, ferguson (21) was undone by a fine piece of fielding from abell.

mitchell turned gregory on the offside and set off for a quick single but ferguson failed to beat abell’s direct hit from point with the total 68-3 in the 16th over.

d’oliveira (10) was undone by a ball from van der merwe that straightened and cox (25) was caught and bowled by azhar ali.

mitchell drilled a gregory delivery to deep cover and, after whiteley delivered some lusty late order blows of defiance, azhar ali wrapped up the latter part of the innings and finished with 5-34.