: Mon Apr 20, 2009 8:27 am
Was at the Rose Bowl yesterday for round 1 of the Friends Provident Trophy (free tickets supplied by some sort of grass roots club initiative - brilliant!). Worcestershire beat the hosts by 53 runs, after they scored 320 in the first innings and Hampshire could not chase it down.
Moeen Ali batting at four for Worcestershire was sensational, he started off rather slowly (50 from 73 balls) but his next 50 came off just 24 as he carted Dominic Cork and Chris Tremlett all over the place. He eventually holed out for 125 from 109 - good fifties too from Ben Smith and Steven Davies.
Hampshire started well with 50 from Michael Lump and 100 from John Crawley but there was precious little else and Gareth Batty returned career-best figures of 5-35.