Old Albanian 209 all out lost to Harpenden II 212-6 by four wickets Old Albanian went down to a narrow defeat against local rivals Harpenden II on Saturday. Harpenden II won the toss and elected to field on a warm afternoon following torrential midweek r

Old Albanian 209 all out lost to Harpenden II 212-6 by four wickets

Old Albanian went down to a narrow defeat against local rivals Harpenden II on Saturday.

Harpenden II won the toss and elected to field on a warm afternoon following torrential midweek rain which had left the playing surface soft.

Despite the early loss of Corran for two, and with the wicket initially offering help to the bowlers, OA built steadily with good contributions from Nguyen (22), Nick Richardson (49), Roy (47) and Smithers (22) taking OA to 188-5 at the end of the 47th over.

Then pace bowler Savio was brought back for a third spell and immediately picked up two wickets, including Simon Gray for 39.

The prospect of a late innings run-fest faded, to be quickly extinguished four overs later when Savio wrapped up the innings at 209 in the penultimate over with a hat-trick, all clean bowled with well-directed yorkers, to finish with well-deserved figures of 5-40.

The target of 210 in 48 overs soon looked achievable as wayward OA bowling was severely punished by opener Hooper's 29 in 25 balls.

The wicket seemed to be improving in the batsmen's favour.

Meanwhile, his opening partner, wicketkeeper Sprowson, rarely looked troubled as none of the OA bowlers found a way to contain the batsmen.

Starting with a second-wicket partnership of 73 with Francis (33), Sprowson's 83 took Harpenden to the verge of victory when he was bowled by Roy to leave the score at 179-5 after 40 overs.

At this point, with 31 required off eight overs, OA still had a chance, but the young county player Washington (23no) took advantage of yet further wayward bowling and the victory target was reached only four overs later with the loss of one further wicket.