PG Academy fall to first defeat of the season

21 May 2009

The Pemberton Greenish Surrey Academy lost a tight game against their Kent counterparts on Sunday despite an excellent hundred by Rory Burns at Beckenham CC.

In a game played in blustery conditions, Surrey batted first and set Kent 204 to win off 45 overs with Burns’ innings repairing some of the damage of middle order mini collapse.

After the early loss of Seren Waters, Surrey started well and reached 61/1 before the collapse saw Cousens, Lancefield and Jewell all dismissed in quick succession.

George Edwards then joined Burns at the crease and the two put on a 100 run partnership with Burns going to his century off 110 balls and finishing of 120, setting Kent a challenging target.

The host’s response was measured and they ticked the scoreboard over with regularity, based around Piesley’s innings.

The spin of Freddie van den Burgh and Munhunthan Harinath kept Surrey on top as they both bowled well in the middle of the innings, building the pressure from both ends with Kent wickets falling as they tried to keep up with the rate.

Van den Burgh ended with figures of nine overs 2/23 with Harinath taking 1/27 off his nine.

Kent needed 56 to win off the last seven overs but also had their four over powerplay up their sleeve. This was taken in the 40th over and Surrey immediately gave up 34 runs from the first two overs.

Kent eventually won by four wickets with ten balls, leaving a PG Academy side deflated by a disappointing loss.

Speaking to www.surreycricket.com, PG Academy Director Gareth Townsend said: “From a learning perspective we discussed afterwards in detail what went wrong and had a very open and honest discussion on where we have to improve for what is a relatively new phenomenon in batting power plays for our younger bowlers.

“Though I am keen to establish a winning culture following our successful first two victories, there will be occasions when we do not get things right. It is these experiences that we can learn from and build into our next training and match play to challenge ourselves.

“The lack of variation and need to execute slower balls and yorkers under pressure at the death of an innings is a key area for us to take forward to our next games when we visit Huntingdonshire and Essex at half term.”