South East Wales Cricket League Division Three - Whitchurch Heath First XI (152-1) beat Monmouth First XI (150-9) by nine wickets

MONMOUTH First XI crashed to a heavy nine-wicket defeat away at Cardiff based Whitchurch Heath on Saturday, and in doing so not only

suffered their second heavy defeat of the season to their hosts but also slipped down to third place in Division Three of the South East Wales Cricket League.

On a warm day in the capital, Monmouth won the toss and chose to bat first on a decent looking wicket at the hospital grounds. Despite the early loss of Matt Jones to a sharp stumping, Monmouth batsman Josh Grey (26) and Adam Roberts (73) made decent progress as the score moved along to 54-1 off 11 overs with both men looking comfortable at the crease against arguably the strongest bowling attack in the league. However, the introduction of left arm seamer Nick Hogben (4-18 off nine) swung the game Whitchurch’s way, as Monmouth collapsed to a precarious 97-7 as their middle order had no answers to the Whitchurch attack.

Young Wales under 14 star Ben Davies stuck to his task well and put on a 34-run partnership with Roberts, before Mohit Bhagravia (1-29 off seven) bowled Roberts for a well made 73 and ended any hope of Monmouth making a competitive score. It was then left to tail-enders Aled Jones (8 not out) and wicket-keeper Jon Despontin (8 not out) to edge Monmouth up to a below par 150-9 off their allotted 45 overs. As well as Hogben and Bhagravia, Monmouth’s chief tormentors were Michael Richards (2-42 off nine), Australian Matthew Hughes (1-26 off nine) and Lewis Maidment (1-13 off seven).

With a score well below what was required Monmouth knew early wickets were vital, but unfortunately found opening batsmen Rob Pearce and dangerman Chris Vanos in good form, punishing the all too frequent bad balls and putting 51 on for the first wicket before Vanos was well caught at mid wicket by Roberts off the bowling of young leg spinner Sam Swingwood (1-29 off nine). Pearce was in particularly brutal mood and his 92 not out consisted of some 17 boundaries as Monmouth set more and more attacking fields as they pushed for wickets. However, Pearce and Dave Tibbs (19 not out) saw the hosts home with some ease in just the 36th over.

The 19 points picked up by Whitchurch saw them move into second place. With Crumlin winning comfortably at Barry Wanderers Monmouth have slipped to third in the table, but it is still all to play for with just three games left as the top four sides are separated by just 11 points. Next Saturday Monmouth will be looking to return to winning ways as they face another tough encounter at the MCG hosting Dinas Powys, with a 1pm start.