2:50pm Sunday 22nd August 2010
THE Pointers entertained third-placed Carhampton, knowing nothing but a victory was required to give them any chance of avoiding relegation, and looking to avenge a defeat from earlier in the season.
Things looked good as the visitors arrived with only nine men, unfortunately the Pointers took the field with eight men as driver John Hill got lost on the way from Cannington. With the game reduced to 30 overs a side due to impending weather forecasts, Carhampton got off to a fast start with 20 off the first 3 overs. The eventual arrival of Hill's mystery tour meant that The Pointers were back up to full strength and young Tim Hill was thrown the ball. He responded by clean bowling both openers in his first 2 overs to leave Carhampton reeling on 31-2.
This brought Sherring and Magill to the crease who attacked everything from the very first ball, with 6s and 4s aplenty. The reintroduction of Dave Dobbly Hill proved the turning point as both batsmen fell for 67 and 60 respectively leaving the score on 173-4 with still 9 overs remaining. With the scoring rate now reduced, Hill took a further 2 wickets to finish with 4-34 from 8 overs. Mike Luckes returned to clean up the tail to finish with 2-46. Tim Hill earlier claimed 2-39 and the slightly expensive John Hill conceded 77 runs from his 7 overs.
Carhampton had posted a very challenging 209 leaving the Pointers an ask of exactly 7.0 runs per over.
Father and son opening partnership of Dave and John Hill took the field but was soon split as Dave was cleaned up for 9. This brought Tim Sullivan to the crease for the game's defining partnership as Sullivan, revelling in his newfound confidence from last weeks top score, proceeded to make use of the open spaces and chance his arm. By the time he had been bowled he had reached his first ever half-century, scoring exactly 50 (8x4. 1X6) and the Pointers were on 102-2 from 14 overs.
Alex Troman came and went for 7, Mike Luckes then joined Hill and hit his usual quickfire runs falling for a rapid 24 leaving the score on 145-4 with 9 overs remaining.
Charlie Searle then joined Hill and again another rapid 24 runs meant that The Pointers had edged closer with the score on 184-5 with 5 overs remaining. Throughout this opener, John Hill had been quite happy to play the anchor role, picking up singles and the odd boundary in a quite out of character innings.
His brother Tim joined him and they calmly moved the score to the required total of 210 with an over to spare, Tim ending with a fine 16 no and John - staking claim to the crown of The new Jeff Cock - batted through the innings for an excellent 60no.
The Pointers had claimed a full 26 pts and left themselves with a mathematical chance of staying up.
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