Soggy Swilgate and a sorry start

10:38am Tuesday 6th May 2008

THE long awaited return of cricket back at The Swilgate was pushed back a further week with the cancellation of Saturday's first team clash with Kings Stanley.

Attention thus turned to the second and third strings with the former travelling to Kings Stanley where they won the toss and restricted their opposition to 173.

The pick of the Tewkesbury attack was the ever reliable Shabir Kashoo who bowled his 12 overs unchanged and finished with 1-30. Youngster Andy Durrant took 2-32 and bowled a fine spell at the death.

Freddie Humphries also provided some variation into the attack with his leg-spin and took two useful wickets, however the concession of 40 extras took a little gloss off an otherwise fine display in the field.

Tewkesbury needed a good start after tea but King had different ideas. Mixing his pace up well, the batsmen struggled and, when Japhet Humphries departed, the scoreboard read a depressing 22-7.

Only opener James Allcoat applied himself well when making 36 before being last man out in a total of 81.

A similar story unfolded of near misses as the third team dismissed Charfield II for 94 with Steve Bowers (4-19) and Matt Cox (2-13) the pick of the attack.

However, with batsmen failing to adapt to the early season wicket, no-one was able to hang around long enough and Tewkesbury finished up 24 runs short of their target.

With a disappointing first weekend of league cricket out of the way, the focus now turns to this Saturday when all three sides will be looking to get off the mark.

The first team travels to Cheltenham Civil Service, while the seconds host Gloucester Civil Service, ground fitness permitting.

The third string face a rearranged home fixture on Sunday against Gladiators.

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