Rossouw finds the power to end Somerset’s perfect start
Hampshire (250-6) beat Somerset (249) by four wickets
A gorgeous, almost cloudless, spring day. No more north-easterlies. A terrific maiden hundred for Hampshire by Rilee Rossouw. A promising spell by a young English leg-spinner, Mason Crane. A vibrant Royal London One-day Cup game of cut and thrust, and ultimately a four-wicket defeat for the only county who had won their first four matches.
Crane, only 20, had to cope with three short boundaries – straight and on the side of the new flats. But he had been left out of the firing line by Hampshire when the earlyseason wind was finger-freezing, so he bounced in, and kept both his head and right arm high, even when the odd ball was slog-swept into the flats.
Hampshire won because they kept taking wickets – or Somerset kept donating them, so they wasted more than five of their 50 overs. First, it was the visitors’ high-class opening Kolpak attack of Kyle Abbott and Fidel Edwards, which was followed by a counter-thrust from Somerset’s Peter Trego, who hit 55 from 46 balls, then Crane intervened with two crucial wickets: Adam Hose caught at long-off and Craig Overton caught behind pushing forward.
Somerset knew they had not scored enough – one of their batsmen had made a century in each of their first four matches – by the time the left-handed Rossouw had scored 74 in the 10 overs of Hampshire’s powerplay.
Rossouw signed for Hampshire last winter in a three-year Kolpak deal, and is a wristy off-side driver but an even better puller, as Jamie Overton found when his first four balls went for four. He powered on to 156 – his highest innings in white-ball formats – off 113 balls. At 27, Rossouw is far too young to have given up on the international game and should be in South Africa’s squad for the Champions Trophy.
At Chelmsford, another century by a left-handed opener, Alastair Cook of Essex, was rather more sedate – his 109 came off 131 balls – but almost as valuable as it enabled Ryan ten Doeschate to hit 102 off 91 as the home side reached 295 for seven. This was some recovery as the former West Indies fast bowler Jerome Taylor had taken a hat-trick for Sussex in the fifth over. Sussex were all out for 285 off the first ball of the penultimate over.
Kent were eliminated from the cup when they lost against Gloucestershire. Gary Ballance has not ceased to make runs since being appointed Yorkshire captain, his unbeaten 152 taking only 118 balls in the win over Northamptonshire.