DESPITE Scott Friswell’s excellent unbeaten 75, Bedworth were unable to prevent Solihull Municipal leaving Miners’ Welfare Park with a six-wicket Warwickshire Premier League win, writes Paul Smith.
Friswell’s enterprising knock plus a rapid 41 from Josh Thomas boosted the hosts to an extremely competitive 263 for seven.
But Abdul Hafeez’s team then ran into an in-form Imandeep Kang who proceeded to pepper the boundary while making a superb 128.
Although he fell before completing the job, Kang’s aggressive contribution had done the damage and as a result the visitors eased over the finishing line in the 49th over.
With Moseley Ashfield beating Rugby, Bedworth need ten points from next week’s clash with Sutton Coldfield and/or their round 22 visit to Attock to be certain of playing top-flight cricket next season.
“At half way I was very pleased with our total and really thought we had a good chance,” Hafeez said.
“Scott led very well with the bat. He took his time to get the pace of a used pitch then went on in the later stages. Josh is also showing good form at the moment and his late flurry was very useful.
“We then started well with the ball but we couldn’t keep a grip on the run rate in the middle of Municipal’s innings and Imandeep batted very well.
“Fizz (Abdullah) beat his outside edge quite a few times early on but we just didn’t get the bit of luck we needed.
“Depending on what happens to Moseley Ashfield we need ten points now to be safe from the last two games against Sutton Coldfield and Attock.”
After asking Bedworth to bat first, the visitors struck two early blows by removing home openers Ryan Parnell and Max Page with the new ball.
Third-wicket pair Nick Thomas (32) and Finn Haynes, whose 40-ball 47 contained a six and seven fours, then steadied the ship with a 66-run partnership.
After both fell in quick succession, useful contributions from Hafeez (33) and Fizz Abdullah (17) saw the hosts past 150 but it was the arrival of Josh Thomas to join Friswell that changed the complexion of the innings.
The seventh-wicket pair added 111 exhilarating runs as Thomas blasted four fours and a six in his 34-ball 41 while Friswell found the boundary ten times and cleared it twice on his way to a superb unbeaten 75.
Muni used eight bowlers of which Alex Roslyn (3-39) was the most impressive.
The visitors’ hopes of chasing 263 suffered an early blow when Abdullah removed James Roslyn, but his opening partner Giles Clements (30) then rebuilt the innings while adding 88 with Kang.
Municipal’s in-form no.3 proceeded to dominate a third-wicket partnership of 81 with Danyal Mehmood (19) before going on to add a further 55 with Shayan Alam.
When Kang eventually fell to the returning Abdullah for 128 he had struck 17 fours and three sixes in his outstanding 129-ball knock.
This left the visitors needing 33 from seven overs and with Alex Roslyn making a breezy unbeaten 22 in the company of Alam (24no) they recorded a six-wicket success with seven balls remaining.
