Sad Wanderers lose their grip on game (From Barry And District News)

Sad Wanderers lose their grip on game

BARRY Wanderers made the short trip to the Ely Rangers ground on a fairly humid afternoon.

Skipper Barnes lost the toss and was asked to field in the heat, but the ball was moving around and the wicket was interesting, to say the least.

Stuart Jones opened the attack and got a beauty to pitch and move two yards over the keeper's head for early runs for Wenvoe, the opposition for today.

In his second over S Jones bowled his namesake.

A stand of 50 ensued between Howell and Gill, but could have been broken several times but for basic dropped catches by the Wanderers.

Eventually a superb bit of fielding from Hardisty got rid of the dogged opener, but Gill was going strong and ended with 85 before succumbing to George and caught by Furnham.

A late contribution of 29 not out by Morley saw the home side reach 230 for 8 off their allotted 45 overs.

For the Wanderers, Ferguson and last week's top scorer Hardisty opened the innings, but the latter was soon to fall for 8, the ball just clipping the bail on its way through to the keeper.

Joel Cross (5) and Paul George (0 - first ball!) soon followed him and the score was a struggling 24 for 3.

League debutant Gary Whiting added 33 for the fourth wicket before being bowled by an absolute jaffa by S Jones. A good stand of 41 by the other S Jones and A Ferguson gave Wanderers hope, but when Ferguson was caught behind by one that rose from Morley, the writing was on the wall.

The Wanderers finished on a very disappointing 143 all out, somewhat rueing their dropped catches.

BARRY Wanderers 2nd X1 v Caerphilly & Bedwas 2nd X1

Saturday brought Caerphilly & Bedwas, coming off a six-match run of wins, to Hayes Point to play Wanderers.

The forecasters were wrong and the day was just right for play. Both teams needed to win to keep their promotion prospects alive, so this promised to be a very competitive match.

Caerphilly won the toss and interestingly put Wanderers into bat.

Wanderers openers, Smith and Sanders, made progress slowly against some very accurate pace bowling from M Jones and Sami, the former bowling his 12 overs for a miserly 27 runs.

The opening partnership went on to achieve a substantial 80 runs for the first wicket (C Sanders 29).

This brought the talented M Ellis to the wicket who, carrying on his run of good form, put the Caerphilly bowlers to the sword, scoring an excellent 65 runs.

Supported by D Smith (48) and E Toozer (14) et al, Wanderers' score reached their second successive double century and 214 for 6.

After an excellent tea, Caerphilly began their reply with D Jones, looking the part, despatching the ball to all parts of the ground until well caught by T Swanick for 28. Wanderers' bowlers soon got on top of the Caerphilly batsmen.

A rejuvenated D Morgan (12-3-31-3) caused them all sorts of problems while M Ashton (10-1-18-3) did his usual "Rock of Gibraltar" job.

E Toozer finished the task with an excellent spell (6-0-11-3) reducing Caerphilly to 101 all out.

This was a good all-round performance from the Wanderers team.