Bears Down Spitfires

• 25/04/2010
• Match Reports

The Warwickshire Bears registered their first win of the season at Canterbury against the Kent Spitfires in their opening match in the Clydesdale Bank 40 competition.

Warwickshire Bears v Kent Spitfires, Canterbury, 25 April 2010

Warwickshire Bears (2 points) beat Kent Spitfires (0 points) by 6 wickets

After winning the toss and fielding, the Bears were rewarded with an early wicket when Chris Woakes bowled Rob Key for ten.

Denly and van Jaarsveld then added 113 for the second wicket before Imran removed them both, and, after Darren Maddy collected two wickets, Stevens’ half century helped the Spitfires register a competitive total of 246 from their forty overs for the loss of just six wickets.

The home side had to thank a late flurry of runs from Darren Stevens, who hit five sixes late in the innings to add fifty runs from the final five overs.

The Bears made a poor start when Neil Carter, having despatched his first ball to the boundary, lost his wicket to the second ball from Azhar Mahmood.

This brought the Bears’ two England men together for the second wicket and both completed half centuries in the process of adding 126 for the second wicket whilst putting their side into a strong position in a testing chase.

Trott 54 was bowled off an inside edge, and when Ian Bell gave van Jaarsveld a return catch for eighty eight and Darren Maddy followed lbw without scoring the Bears had lost three wickets for just twenty six runs.

It needed another commanding innings and Jim Troughton, who has been in good early season form, provided it in partnership with skipper Ian Westwood.

Helped by some late inaccurate bowling, Troughton 56* and Westwood 28* added eighty three runs in an unbroken fifth wicket partnership that took the Bears through to an opening match victory by six wickets with thirteen deliveries in hand.