Hawks edge close affair

Date: Sunday 26 April 2009

Leics Foxes 238-6 (Boyce 80, Dippenaar 65, Dawson 4-48) lost to Hampshire Hawks 242-6 (Benham 79) by four wickets.

Hampshire Hawks edged a close game against Leicestershire Foxes by four wickets in the FPT at Grace Road today.

The Foxes posted 238-6 from their allotted overs, with Matthew Boyce the mainstay with a positive 80. Boeta Dippenaar also made an excellent 65.

In reply, Chris Benham scored 79 before becoming Iain O'Brien's second wicket on debut, but by that stage he had took his side to the brink of victory.

Liam Dawson - who also bowled well - shared a crucial 73 runs for the fifth wicket with Benham, while Michael Carberry had previously contributed 39 to the innings.

Earlier in the day, Boyce shared excellent stands of 58 and 76 with HD Ackerman (23) and Dippenaar (65) respectively, before becoming the first of four wickets for Dawson.

The slow left-armer bowled nicely, and applied the breaks to the Foxes innings, after they had been well-placed at 134-1 in the 32nd over.

The innings stalled somewhat when Dawson had Boyce caught by Sean Ervine attempting to reverse-sweep.

Boyce had played superbly, timing a number of drives to the boundary and also sweeping his way to a 67-ball 50 with six fours.

With good support from Ackerman and Dippenaar, it looked as though he was in for a maiden one-day hundred. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be.

Early on, both Boyce and Ackerman accumulated patiently in the face of some good seam bowling, but Ackerman nicked change bowler Billy Taylor through to Nic Pothas.

Although Boyce also fell, Dippenaar continued on his way nicely to a 61-ball half-century, but also lost Paul Nixon, Jacques du Toit and James Taylor to the flighted spin of England under-19 spinner Dawson (4-48).

When Taylor returned to take the wicket of Dippenaar with the score on 200 in the 46th, the innings looked as though it was struggling to end with momentum.

However, Wayne White (21*) and Carl Crowe (13*) shared a breezy 38-run stand to finish things on a high.

In reply, AJ Harris and O'Brien struck important blows as they removed Michael Lumb and Ervine respectively. And, when White nipped one through John Crawley's defences, the Hawks were hardly flying at 52-3.

However, Benham, in partnership with Carberry and Dawson, turned the tide in the visitors' favour.

The left-handed Carberry's first misjudgement was his last, leaving a ball from Crowe that would have hit off stump had the pad not intervened.

Benham continued on his way, though, and his carefully-built 79 from 100 balls was just what the visitors needed. With Dawson going at a run-a-ball, the reply was timed to perfection.

Both were removed to give the Foxes a sniff, with White snaring Dawson lbw and O'Brien having Benham caught behind down the leg-side.

That left Pothas and Dominic Cork with a little work to do, but they scored at more than a run-a-ball to guide the Hawks home.

The final stats don't tell the whole story, though. At the halfway stage of both innings, both sides were 100-2. On another day, County could have won but the small margins went against them and the visitors left with the two points.

Points: Leics 0, Hants 2.