Harberton v Pearman played on 19^th June 2010

· Played at Harberton

· Toss won by Harberton

· Harberton 129 for 10 wickets

· Pearman 130 for 6 wickets

· Pearman won by 4 wickets

Cricket is a remarkable game in that youth, athleticism and speed can be combined with age, experience and guile to produce a winning combination. This was well demonstrated by the performances of Pearman captain Chris Jones and his 70+ father who destroyed the Harberton batting line up with their superb bowling. Bowling an excellent line, while extracting bounce and movement out of the wicket, Chris Jones (2 for 4), soon had Alexander back in the pavilion for a duck. Black and Overall batted carefully, occasionally punishing the bad ball,to take the score to 50 at 14 overs before Black lobbed a catch to Kavanagh off Sadler for a useful 25.

Enter the promising McCready who immediately went on to the attack. The drinks interval in cricket is notorious for claiming wickets as the concentration of the batsmen is disturbed. Jones senior came on to bowl. His well flighted slow bowling was too tempting to the batsmen and McCready(13) could not resist going down the wicket only to play and miss, providing wicketkeeper Miles with the first of three stumpings. Kent (0) and Oakey (1) followed quickly afterwards making the same mistake while the solid Overall (31) became Miles senior’s fourth victim as Harberton collapsed from the tea score of 77 for 2 to 93 for 7 in just 7 overs. Captain Pike (22 not out) tried to rescue the situation but ran out of partners as Harberton were dismissed for 129.

Chris Jones has been in a rich vein of form in recent matches. He looked a class act as he opened the Pearman response with Hunt. Oakey and Pike opened the bowling – a combination of pace and spin. Scoring was not easy and Oakley beat the bat on several occasions without much luck. It was in the 11^th over that Oakey finally broke through getting Hunt caught for a duck with the score at 33. Significantly Jones had scored most of the runs and looked very comfortable. In recent matches Harberton have turned to the wily Shephard to get them out of trouble. Yet again he did not disappoint as he got Jones to play a lazy shot to a wide ball to be caught by Black for 32.

Kumar (23) looked comfortable until he was bowled by Goldsmith and with Shephard running out Mohammed and trapping Kavanagh lbw, both for ducks, Pearman slumped to 75 for 5 wickets. Their innings was going the same way as Harberton’s. The accurate Black (1 for 4 in 6 overs) came into the attack. He quickly dismissed Carey for 17 – Pearman still needed 36 from their last 4 wickets.

Pike tried everything. Attacking fields, regular changes of bowling, but Sadler (19 not out) and Bailles (13 not out) batted very responsibly to see Pearman home with 5 overs to spare. An excellent game in which father Jones and his son were the difference between the two teams.