Joe Kooner-Evans produced a stunning spell of new ball bowling as Portsmouth thrashed previously unbeaten Southern Premier League Division 1 leaders New Milton – the toss at St Helen’s, which George Watts lost, proving crucial.
Milton had won all four previous matches but on the back of a nine-wicket defeat by the seaside have dropped to second place in the log behind Totton & Eling, who have leapfrogged to the top with a superior points per match average. The Green & Golds go to Southern Gardens on Satuday.
Totton’s visit to near neighbours Calmore Sports was a casualty of the previous day’s heavy rain, which led to six Premier League matches being cancelled.
Kooner-Evans (left) reduced the visitors to 4-3 on Southsea seafront by removing opener Toby Edwards (0), in-form South African Harlan Greig (2) and Lee Beck (1). Amazingly Milton lurched to 19-5 when Kooner-Evans’ new ball partner, Henry Woolf, dismissed Joe Hall (2) and the talismanic Ryan Beck (0).
Campbell Goulding (40) and skipper George Watts (29) fought back with a stand of 58 for the sixth wicket, but Milton needed a last wicket partnership of 38 between Jack Humphrey (18) and Ed Bartlett (15 not out) to reach 132.
Kooner-Evans, who had bagged 3-19 in the previous week’s win against Sparsholt on his first SPL appearance of the season since his return from Swansea University and a spell playing for Neath in the powerful South Wales Premier League, claimed 3-28.
Woolf returned 2-19 off his eight overs while another Portsmouth Grammar School old boy Jono Brook, recently back from his studies at Warwick, dismissed both Goulding and Watts on his way to 3-24.
Portsmouth lost opener Jack Marston to the first ball he received, leaving them 5-1 in reply. But that was the only wicket they lost as captain James Christian (63*) joined opener Ben Duggan (60*) to share an unbroken partnership of 131 as Portsmouth romped to victory in the 23rd over.
The win lifted Portsmouth out of the bottom two. With several lead players now back from university, they look a much stringer side, much to the relief of their increasingly anxious president Arthur Shaw.
Joe Kooner-Evans photograph by Bob Selley.
Milton had won all four previous matches but on the back of a nine-wicket defeat by the seaside have dropped to second place in the log behind Totton & Eling, who have leapfrogged to the top with a superior points per match average. The Green & Golds go to Southern Gardens on Satuday.
Totton’s visit to near neighbours Calmore Sports was a casualty of the previous day’s heavy rain, which led to six Premier League matches being cancelled.
Kooner-Evans (left) reduced the visitors to 4-3 on Southsea seafront by removing opener Toby Edwards (0), in-form South African Harlan Greig (2) and Lee Beck (1). Amazingly Milton lurched to 19-5 when Kooner-Evans’ new ball partner, Henry Woolf, dismissed Joe Hall (2) and the talismanic Ryan Beck (0).
Campbell Goulding (40) and skipper George Watts (29) fought back with a stand of 58 for the sixth wicket, but Milton needed a last wicket partnership of 38 between Jack Humphrey (18) and Ed Bartlett (15 not out) to reach 132.
Kooner-Evans, who had bagged 3-19 in the previous week’s win against Sparsholt on his first SPL appearance of the season since his return from Swansea University and a spell playing for Neath in the powerful South Wales Premier League, claimed 3-28.
Woolf returned 2-19 off his eight overs while another Portsmouth Grammar School old boy Jono Brook, recently back from his studies at Warwick, dismissed both Goulding and Watts on his way to 3-24.
Portsmouth lost opener Jack Marston to the first ball he received, leaving them 5-1 in reply. But that was the only wicket they lost as captain James Christian (63*) joined opener Ben Duggan (60*) to share an unbroken partnership of 131 as Portsmouth romped to victory in the 23rd over.
The win lifted Portsmouth out of the bottom two. With several lead players now back from university, they look a much stringer side, much to the relief of their increasingly anxious president Arthur Shaw.
Joe Kooner-Evans photograph by Bob Selley.
