Courageous Sher fails to stop Sussex

Sussex 268-6 Bucks 144-7 Sussex win by 124 runs

At least it was not abject surrender, indeed by the end Buckinghamshire managed to fashion quite a fist as they battled for pride in this Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy third-round match, and the man who packed something of a punch for the minor county was Bobby Sher.

Having claimed three slightly costly Sussex wickets with his brisk off-spin, Sher then dug in deep, making a real nuisance of himself with the bat, and was rewarded with a chanceless, unbeaten half-century. The pity of it was that he found precious little in the way of support until Sussex had whipped the upper order.

Buckinghamshire had fairly fizzed in the field. Matt Bowyer was outstanding; his brilliance, swooping on a Murray Goodwin drive, scooping the ball and releasing it in one super, fluid motion to hit the stumps from a fair distance was wonderful to witness. Goodwin, on nine at the time, survived, but it must have been close. And if Bowyer was extra special, then the Buckinghamshire fielding in general was exemplary – at least until the rain came.

In those first 40 overs Sussex were never quite able to tear away, although the man of the match, Tim Ambrose, and Bas Zuiderent piled up 112 for the second wicket, the Dutchman smacking a 70-ball fifty, falling on reaching the mark. The rain then followed, and after the deluge – which held up play for some 50 minutes – the game, but flagging attack went for almost 100 runs in the remaining 10 or so overs.

They did emerge with half a dozen wickets from the mayhem, including that of Ambrose, who was well taken in the deep by Jeremy Batty. For a few agonising moments confusion reigned, and it looked as if Ambrose might be allowed to go on to reach his maiden one-day hundred, because neither the batsman nor the fielding side was sure that the catch would stand since they were under the impression that the delivery by Adnam Saleem had been a no ball. As things turned out it was legitimate, so the promising wicket-keeper-batsman had to content himself instead with a career-best limited-overs score of 95, and the knowledge that he will have another chance in the fourth-round at Leicestershire next month.