Royal London Cup: Somerset wins over Worcestershire and Essex loses to Warwickshire
In the first quarter-final of the Royal London Club One-day Cup, Somerset, defeated Worcestershire quite comfortably. The brilliant performance of the Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene and Australia’s Jim Allenby helped Somerset achieve a nine-wicket victory against the West Midland county at the County Ground in Taunton.
Jayawardene scored 117 for the team and was not out, whereas Allenby added an unbeaten 81 run for Somerset to push the other county out of the game. England’s Moeen Ali was good enough to take the later batsman’s wicket but that was the only wicket Worcestershire managed to take. Somerset scored 214-1 in 36.5 overs and defeated Worcestershire, who made 210 in 42.5 overs.
The decision to send Daryl Mitchell to open Worcestershire’s batting didn’t seem to be a good idea as the batsman failed to add significant runs to the scoreboard. Though Moeen and Mitchell contributed some useful runs to the team’s total, there weren’t any notable partnerships. After Moeen and Mitchell, Joe Leach looked promising with his 18-ball stay but was cut short with only 20 runs when Roelof van der Merve made the batsman run-out.
In the second quarterfinal match of the tournament at Edgbaston, Warwickshire performed brilliantly against Essex, which resides North-East of London. The landlocked county of the West Midlands of England defeated Essex by 70 runs.
Also read: Essex 20 all out in worst total since 1901
The former England batsman Jonathan Trott scored an amazing century for Warwickshire. Captain of the team Tim Ambrose who scored 60 runs and Laurie Evans with 70 runs, played an important role in the team’s victory. The efforts made by Essex’s Graham Napier (3-60) and Ryan ten Doeschate (2-46) were not enough to beat the winners 283 runs.
In the beginning of the game, Essex played well with a solid partnership play between Nick Browne (39) and Tom Westley (61). But the team’s middle-order was not strong enough against the opposition bowlers. Jeeten Patel and Josh Posyden’s spin-duo partnership almost shattered the Essex’s middle-order. Doeschate had to take most of the team’s responsibility to take it forward. He fought hard to stay on the pitch and made a score of 53 in 52 balls but the there was clear deficiency from the other end. Essex to ended the game 70 runs off the target.