Royals Remain Unbeaten Thanks to Carberry Knock

Carberry made 76 off 86 balls (including 10 fours)

Match report from the Hampshire Royals' Clydesdale Bank 40 match against the Scottish Saltires at Uddingston CC

Scottish Saltires v Hampshire Royals
Clydesdale Bank 40
Sunday 20 May
Uddingston CC

Summary: Hampshire beat Scotland by 89 runs
Hampshire Royals: 220 (39.4 ovs)
Scottish Saltires: 131 (33 ovs)
Scorecard
Concurrent Table

Saltires Team
Flannigan, MacLeod, Symes, Davey, Berrington, Mommsen, Wallace+, Haq, Parker, Drummond, Evans
Royals Team
Adams*, Carberry, Vince, Katich, Dawson, Ervine, Bates+, Wood, Ali, Briggs, Griffiths

A Michael Carberry knock of 76 guided Hampshire to a relatively un-troubled 89-run victory against the Scottish Saltires in this Clydesdale Bank 40 match at Uddingston CC.

His was the pivotal innings in Hampshire’s total of 220 as a middle-order wobble, prompted by a troublesome two-over spell of 3-10 from Saltires’ spinner Majid Haq (3-42), threatened to de-rail a promising start.

But a late surge with the bat from Kabir Ali (32) and Danny Briggs (17) wasn’t required in retrospect as the visiting attack gunned-down the Scottish line-up for 131 (Ali 2-17, Briggs 2-31).

That means the Royals are unbeaten from their first two matches but face a potentially sterner test away to last season’s runners-up Somerset at Taunton next Sunday. In between, they will look to record a second LV= County Championship victory of the season over Glamorgan at The Ageas Bowl starting on Wednesday.

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Royals skipper Jimmy Adams (33) won the toss and, rather than electing to see how the wicket – which was new to Hampshire – played, confidently elected to bat first. And the decision looked a decent one when, together with Carberry, the pair saw their side through the compulsory opening powerplay at 64-0, taking 13, nine and 11 off overs five-to-eight to accelerate.

But, in the next over, home skipper Gordon Drummond, who came into the match having not taken a single wicket in the Saltires’ opening three matches, managed to coax a feathered edge from his opposite number through to the wicket-keeper, standing up. That just bought James Vince to the crease, though, re-uniting a partnership with Carberry that had made 142 against the Welsh Dragons in the side’s last CB40 match.

And the pair brought up the Royals’ 100 easily enough in the 14th over. But then the Saltires’ bowlers took control. Haq reduced the Royals from 107-1 to 117-4 by the 18th over. The run-rate, inevitably, slowed and, apart from a single through the covers to bring up Carberry’s 50 (52 balls, eight fours), the new batsmen couldn’t rotate the strike enough to get the in-form man to face regularly.

Carberry watched three further partners come and go before the England international fell in near identical fashion to his fellow opener; Drummond (2-28), again, the man to claim the scalp - Hampshire now 178-8.

Ali-Colours-Bat-Kent-Canterbury-Ansell-1-410 At that stage it looked as if the Royals could be in danger of not giving their attack enough to bowl at. How fitting then, that Ali - pictured left - and Briggs should take some of the strain off their own shoulders by putting on a ninth-wicket partnership of 41. The former, in particular, looked so good, in fact, that he paused from hammering a six back down the ground in the 38th over then two consecutive fours in the 39th only to replace his bat, split by the impact of such hard-hitting.

And despite ending all out with two balls to go, the Royals knew they’d given their opposition a decent total to chase. That feeling was only reinforced when the hosts couldn’t make the most of the opening powerplay, scoring only 27 runs off the first eight overs - nearly 40 fewer than Hampshire at the same stage.

And things would get worse for them as two wickets in two balls from Ali saw them to 28-2 by the end of the ninth. The bowling powerplay gave them another opportunity to up the run-rate but, by the end of it, they’d fallen even farther behind (their 43 playing Hampshire’s 90 after 12) and, worse, they’d lost their top tournament run-scorer so far, Calum MacLeod (16), to a suicidal run-out.

A partnership of 36 between South Africa-born duo, Preston Mommsen (22) and Jean Symes (33) briefly held Hampshire up, but it was really only delaying the inevitable.

The remaining wickets were shared out amongst the attack and there was also an impressive run-out from Chris Wood. From the final ball of Briggs' final over Alasdair Evans (0) was trapped lbw and Hampshire began their long journey back to the South Coast.