Lamb gives Hants mint opportunity
Source -
sportinglife.com
Spin bowler Greg Lamb took three wickets, all of them stumped down the legside by wicketkeeper Nic Pothas, as Hampshire kept alive their hopes of qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Twenty20 Cup with a 36-run win over Essex at the Rose Bowl.
Hampshire mustered a modest 151 for four from their 20 overs thanks to a half-century from Michael Carberry and an unbeaten 37 from man-of-the-match Lamb.
Essex, who had already beaten Hampshire in the competition last week at home, appeared to be coasting towards their target at 57 for one, but then Lamb was introduced to the attack and Essex quickly capitulated, finishing 115 all out in the 17th over.
Hampshire hit five sixes to none from the Essex batsmen who struggled to get on top of the bowling.
Carberry lost opening partner Mitchell Stokes and Dominic Thornely by the time the score had reached 31, but them Lamb helped him put together a stand of 58, the best of the match, to give Hampshire a fighting chance.
Carberry twice lifted former Hampshire bowler Andy Bichel for sixes and also hit four fours before being stumped by James Foster going down the wicket to Tim Phillips.
Although Chris Tremlett, promoted in the order in the search for quick runs, was soon out, Dimitri Mascarenhas helped Lamb add a further 55 before the close.
Mascarenhas hit Bichel for sixes off successive deliveries to finish 42 not out, but Essex must have fancied their chances of knocking off the runs.
Their captain Ronnie Irani was brilliantly run out by Thornely running in from the covers from the second ball of the innings without having faced, but then Darren Gough joined Mark Pettini in a blossoming stand of 57 that ended only when Gough heaved across the line at Mascarenhas for what proved to be his side's top score of 34.
Hampshire's stand-in captain Shaun Udal brought himself and Lamb on in tandem from the seventh over, and Essex fell away rapidly.
Udal finished with figures of three for 21, dismissing James Foster, the potentially dangerous Bichel and Ravi Bopara, and Essex never recovered.
But it was Lamb who drew the applause of a 7,500 crowd for running through the middle order with some smart work behind the stumps by Pothas.
Pettini was the first to go, straying from his crease chasing a ball signalled by the umpire as a wide, and next ball Ryan ten Doeschate went the same way.
Lamb struck again when James Middlebrook was also snared by the alert Pothas and his occasional bowling was rewarded with figures of three for 23.
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