Issue 155

Nine wicket whitewash

08th May 2007

Swansea 109 - Cardiff 110-1

On the Saturday before the main Varsity events the Swansea men's cricket team travelled to Cardiff for the 50 over match that really kicked off the week of Varsity events. The match did not really go to plan for the Swansea side as they lost the toss and were put into bat, and never really put enough runs on the board to seriously challenge the Cardiff side.

The opening partnership of Goodway and Williams for Swansea managed to post just 15 runs before Williams edged a straight delivery to Fury, the confident Cardiff keeper who took the chance cleanly. In came Scott, but failed to add to the total before trying to clip a delivery off his pads but did not connect fully and Fury again took the catch, diving down the leg side, dismissing Scott for 0. After ten overs Swansea had scored just 35, they had to increase the run rate and keep wickets in hand to hope to post a reasonable score.

Then came Ghumman who worked well with Goodway and they scored well between them. They cleverly picked holes in the field to make the most of their shots, and ran well between the wickets accumulating a partnership of 36 before Stewart caught Ghumman well in the field, for 14.

In at 5 was Rees, who scored 8 before getting caught lbw in front of the stumps by the Cardiff opening bowler Bekker.

Then came captain Jimmy Mugnaioni with the score at 66-4, who managed to add seven to the total before starting the collapse that effectively was the end of Swansea's innings. In a devastating spell from Williams, he took three wickets in quick succession, dismissing Mugnaioni for 7, then Rose and Shrives both for 0. The opening batsman, Goodway, who had been looking good spooned a catch to mid on for 37. This left Swansea at 76 for 8, and in pretty bad shape. This was made worse when Tustain was clean bowled by Bekker for his third wicket of the day.

The innings was given a shred of respectability by the final partnership of Dredge and Treagus, who managed to score some boundaries and play some good shots, including the only six of the innings before Treagus was caught lbw by Bekker for his fourth of the day, to leave the final score at 109 all out.

Swansea only managed to last half of the 50 overs, so they had a quick change over and another 15 overs were to be bowled before lunch.

The Cardiff opening batsmen came out firing and Hesketh and Cox made light work of the Swansea bowlers who struggled to hit their lines and lengths and seriously trouble the Cardiff batsmen. Swansea also gave away a number of extras, the second over went for 17 runs as wides and boundaries added up.

The Cardiff batsmen were scoring freely and easily picking up boundaries off the overs. A breakthrough for Swansea came in the eighth over off Mugnaioni's bowling, as Ryan Williams took an astonishing catch, diving away to his right in the covers, to remove Hesketh for 28. This did not seem to worry Cardiff at all, as in came Butterworth with the score at 62-1, and with Cox he saw off the remaining runs without loss. Cox finished with 45 not out, Butterworth 19 not out to complete the total of 110 off only 16 overs.

Cardiff won by 9 wickets, and Swansea captain Mugnaoni said, " there have been better days for Swansea cricket, but this is still only the start of the season for us." In short, Swansea failed to score enough runs when opening the batting to provide a total big enough to defend against a team that is a UCCE. (University Centre of Cricketing Excellence) The fact Cardiff have vastly superior facilities and talent at their disposal was a disadvantage to Swansea but for this fairly young team there is a lot of potential for improvement, and they can only get better.

Matt Cannon