Wilson gives St George’s six of the best
PHC 99 for one, beat St George’s 98 all out, by nine wickets. (Points: PHC 14, St George’s 1)Keishon Wilson took six –wickets, Chris Foggo scored a half-century and PHC brought an end to St George’s 100 percent record in stunning fashion yesterday.The nine-wicket triumph was PHC’s first league win of the season, St George’s first defeat, and a result that no-one would have predicted at the start of the day’s play at Wellington Oval.Less than 24 hours after losing their Western Counties title, PHC produced the kind of performance that saw them enjoy so much success last year.They bowled well, fielded well and simply watched as the home side self-destructed in a quite astonishing manner.Wilson will take much of the credit and while it was true that he produced an accurate spell of seam bowling with late –movement that created –problems, those problems were amplified ten-fold by a St George’s team who batted –absymally.PHC, meanwhile, finally got something right themselves and the decision to finally open the bowling with Kamau Leverock paid almost instance dividends.Leverock tore into the St George’s top-order and removed both Oronde Bascome and Christian Burgess with only 10 runs on the board.At the other end Kevin Tucker was bowling with his usual sharpness and might count himself unlucky to finish wicketless from seven overs that only went for 18 runs.Still, at two down, there was little sign of the collapse that was to follow as Mishael –Paynter (15) and Detroy Smith (19) put on 36 for the third –wicket.Smith had already been –given one life when he was dropped on the boundary by Wilson, but the PHC man more than made up for that in a –seven over spell that ended the game as a contest.Paynter was first to go, bowled after playing all around a straight one, and the rest followed in quick succession. Lamar Richardson briefly got in on the fun, having Smith caught on the boundary but after that it was all Wilson, and St George’s.Richard Todd chopped a slow full toss on to his own stumps, Dean Minors drove one straight into the hands of Cal Waldron close in, Troy Hall was bowled swinging for the fences, Clay Darrell got a thin inside edge and was caught behind, and Rudell Pitcher was slightly –unfortunate to be given out lbw.At 78 for nine the St George’s innings was in ruins, but a –20-run cameo from tailenders Macai Simmons and Ricky –Foggo at least restored a little bit of respectability to the home side.They might even have dragged their team into triple figures, but Simmons was given out lbw to a ball that looked to have struck him a little high.Defending such a low total was never going to be a realistic prospect for St George’s and in the end it took PHC just –17.2 overs to get the runs.Foggo batted sensibly, –putting the bad ball away with aplomb, and doing his Cup Match hopes no harm in the process.The only wicket to fall was that of Mark Smith, who was early on a Christian Burgess –delivery and lobbed a gentle catch to Paynter at point, but that merely brought skipper –Jason Anderson to the crease and his unbeaten 27 included several brutal boundaries, one of which brought the game to an end in emphatic fashion.