McKenzie Innings Burns Dragons

Keep up to date with all the latest from the Hampshire Royals' Clydesdale Bank 40 match against the Welsh Dragons at the SWALEC Stadium

Welsh Dragons v Hampshire Royals
Clydesdale Bank 40
Friday 10 August
The SWALEC Stadium, Cardiff

Summary: Hampshire beat Glamorgan by 107 runs
Hampshire Royals: 227
Welsh Dragons: 120
Scorecard
Concurrent Table

Dragons Team
Rees, Wallace†*, Cooke, Allenby, North, Walters, Wright, Wagg, Cosker, S Jones, Glover
Royals Team
Adams*, Vince, McKenzie, Katich, Ervine, Dawson, Wood, Riazuddin, Bates†, Briggs, Griffiths

Not for the first time recently, Neil McKenzie was the star of he show as his huge innings of 88 completely took the wind out of the Welsh Dragons' sails and set the Hampshire Royals on their way to victory in this Clydesdale Bank 40 match at the SWALEC Stadium.

Having enjoyed match-winning innings in the Friends Life t20 match against Nottinghamshire and LV= County Championship match against Essex, the South African completed the treble across all formats by helping his side to an intimidating target of 227 on a slow wicket.

In response, some excellent returns from Danny Briggs (4-32) and Chris Wood (5-22) - the latter's first List A five-fer - wiped out a Dragons side who were completely overwhelmed by the Royals' superiority not for the first time in this competition. They were bowled out for 120.

The result means Hampshire now top Group B going into their next competition match against Somerset at The Ageas Bowl next Tuesday, 14th August.

The afternoon began with Hampshire announcing a number of changes to their line-up - mainly in the bowling attack. One of those, of course, was enforced as the injured Dimi Mascarenhas was replaced with fellow all-rounder Hamza Riazuddin, while David Griffiths replaced Kabir Ali from the Royals’ last CB40 XI.

In addition, Wood and Briggs resumed their usual places in the one-day bowling group having missed the Championship match against Gloucestershire earlier this week. But it was with the bat that the visitors made an early impression as James Vince – another player who didn’t play at Bristol – opened for his side having been asked to bat by their hosts.

And Vince (48) made batting look easier than it was in the early exchanges, keeping the run-rate above six; Hampshire 66-2 at the end of the first 10 overs. And the youngster, who is the Royals second-top run scorer, was agonisingly close to his 50 when he fell victim to a somewhat unusual dismissal – either run out or stumped by wicket-keeper Mark Wallace depending on your definition.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be the last unlucky dismissal as Sean Ervine (14) was stumped having kept his foot down all the way until bails came off and a miscommunication saw Michael Bates (2) run-out attempting three but ending up at the same end as his partner, McKenzie; Hants 121-6 (27th over).

At this point Hampshire looked like they would struggle to reach 150 and, to Glamorgan’s credit they had started applying the squeeze, setting Championship-type fields with players crowded round the bat to spinner Dean Cosker’s overs and using the medium pacers who were always going to be hard to get away on this surface.

Everyone was struggling to score... except, that was, McKenzie who brought up his half century (59 balls, four fours) off former Royal Simon Jones in the 28th over. And when the batting powerplay was called with six overs to go the South African was able to open up his shoulders, smashing John Glover for consecutive fours to set off a 15 run over.

The question appeared to be whether his lower order colleagues could stay with him and see out the overs but, more than that, Briggs (25) even made batting look easy striking two sweet sixes over the bowler’s head. Glamorgan’s six penalty runs for a slow over rate also helped as Hampshire ended up posting their deceptively good total.

And the confidence they gained from that late surge immediately transferred itself into the visitors’ bowling and fielding. Athletic all over the park, Wood [pictured above] led the seam attack, taking 3-8 from his first four-over spell to leave the Dragons 21-3. Griffiths, meanwhile, was giving nothing away at the other end - the final over of the bowling powerplay was a maiden! And he soon had reward for his endeavour, inducing an edge off Marcus North’s (14) bat to leave the hosts 47-4; Griffiths, himself, had figures of 1-4 off three overs by this point. 

I was something of a surprise, then, when Briggs was brought into the attack, having seen seam work so well. But any concerns were soon quietened when the Isle of Wight-born England International snared Jim Allenby (14) in his first over. He would then dismiss Graham Wagg, Ben Wright and John Glover - all clean bowled - in three overs in a row. 

That left the welshmen 119-8 at the end of the 32nd over. In the next five balls they would be all out as Wood swooped to complete his five-fer and hand a long-inevitable victory to the Royals. 

Words: Simon Vincent
Images: NJM Photography

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