COMPTON HOUSE 191-7 (20pts) beat PORTLAND RT 190 (7pts) by three wickets

PORTLAND Red Triangle succumbed to arch-rivals Compton House by three wickets in their County Division One battle.

Electing to bowl first on a tricky home pitch, House restricted the scoring rate of Triangle openers Ray Emery (4) and Callan Laws (15), until counterparts Rich Millard (1-26) and Patrick Reynolds (1-36) removed them respectively.

At 36-2, Portland briefly fought back as Chris Leake (19) and Simon Proffitt revived the visitors’ the innings until Leake’s dismissal to Mike Kennedy (1-40) sparked a mini subsidence as Michael Harper (2-41) accounted for Ollie Whisker (3) and Joe Adkins (0).

Proffitt (49) and skipper Matt Randell (38) combined to build an 85-run stand before the former lofted a catch off Jake Bunday (2-28), who helped take four wickets for two runs with Piers Griffith-Jones (3-16).

A late 30-run partnership for Matt Barrett (16no) and Rob Townley (13) boosted Triangle to set a target of 191 that House never looked in danger of falling short of.

Nic Millard (22) hit two fours and two sixes to open the hosts’ reply, until offering a return catch to Proffitt (2-52).

Fellow opener Harper (28) fell to Barrett (2-31) before Randell (3-40) gave Triangle genuine hope at 110-5 with a quick treble of wickets, ousting Thomas Hunt (11), Chris Haynes (4) and Reynolds (0).

However, a vital stand of 62 between Jonathan Franke (61) and David Proctor (31) proved decisive as House defeated their rivals with seven overs remaining.

Speaking to Echosport, Randell admitted the better side had emerged victorious.

He said: “The better team on the day won, simple as that. They applied themselves better than we did – we had a lot of soft dismissals and not going on to make a big score.

“I don’t think we fielded as well as we could have. If you’re dropping catches you don’t deserve to win the game anyway. Your fielding has to be a good standard.”

Elaborating on reasons for the defeat, Randell said: “We didn’t really put on enough runs, 190 was a reasonable score, but not a winning score.

“Everyone knows what they should be doing, they just didn’t apply themselves.”

Randell added that Triangle had missed paceman Kyle Sloane, who returned to New Zealand for family reasons.

He said: “It was just that explosive couple of overs. He would bowl two-over spells as quick as he could and look to get wickets – we definitely missed that.”

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