SWANAGE SECONDS 204-7 (7pts) lost to ABBOTSBURY 205-5 (18pts) by 5 wickets

ABBOTSBURY moved into the top-three in County Division Four and kept their hopes of promotion alive with a five-wicket home win over Swanage Seconds.

On a warm afternoon, it looked like a good toss to win and Swanage made no hesitation in choosing to bat first.

The visitors’ opening batsmen made a confident start, patiently seeing off some testing deliveries to take advantage of the occasional loose ball to take the score to 42-0 from the first seven overs.

The evergreen Grafton Straker (1-20) then struck in the eighth over, bowling Cameron Beard for 16.

This was the breakthrough that Abbotsbury were after and the introduction of Chas Duerdoth to the attack brought quick reward as the bowler returned figures of 3-29 from his eight overs, including the wickets of Mike Nash (32) and the dangerous Tim Ives (12).

Despite finding themselves five wickets down for 111 runs, Swanage’s batsmen continued to attack Abbotsbury’s spin bowlers, scoring at more than eight runs an over.

A series of attacking shots produced several wicket chances, however Abbotsbury’s fielders were unable to hold on to their catches and, consequentially, Swanage found themselves in a strong position with eight overs remaining. Pete Lawrence (0-14) was introduced to help slow the run-rate and bowled well in combination with Aaron Oliver (1-22) to restrict Swanage to 204-7.

Abbotsbury’s reply got off to a poor start as both openers were lost without troubling the scorers within the first two overs.

Swanage’s opening bowlers, Elliot Baczala (1-27) and Tom Salmon (1-37) picked up one wicket apiece.

Abbotsbury’s Steve Budd (45) and Stuart Gill (30) stayed calm however, and led the counter-attack, playing some fine shots to keep Abbotsbury within the required run-rate.

A change of bowling brought fast reward as Gill fell to Steve Kent’s leg spin (1-45), however this brought the in-form Duerdoth to the crease and the boundaries flowed with the help of a fast outfield.

When Budd fell just short of his half-century in the 18th over, Abbotsbury still needed 95 runs to win.

However, Chris Backhouse (37) combined well with Duerdoth (72 not out) to see Abbotsbury across the line with 10 overs to spare.

The impressive victory saw Abbotsbury leapfrog Swanage into third place.

Bride Valley man of the match: Chas Duerdoth