Holders through as Culverwell returns

TOTAL Cobo progressed through to the semi-finals of the Alexander Forbes Cup very comfortably on Saturday. The holders cruised to a six-wicket victory over Sylvans at the KGV in an unremarkable contest, the most noteworthy aspect of which was the return to action of Mark Culverwell.

The Guernsey strike bowler had an operation on his knee pre-season which had kept him out of Cobo's line-up for the first two months.

On Saturday he returned and created a bit of zip off a shortened run-up, although not with the new ball that was entrusted once again to Rob Turville and Liam Smyth.

Wicket-keeper Justin Ferbrache was certainly surprised by Culverwell's early generation of pace. Standing up for the first delivery, the bowler banged one in short and Ferbrache had to be sharp as he gathered it above his head.

He wisely decided to stand back later on and he took the catch that made it a wicket-taking return for Culverwell as Andre Austin edged the first ball of his sixth and final over.

But by that point it was already quite clear that there was only going to be one winner.

Turville and Smyth had kept things very tight early on, with the former making the initial breakthrough by having opener Chris McClean caught by Alex Hunter.

In their combined 15 overs, the two opening bowlers conceded a miserly 21 runs between them as Sylvans looked to take their time and not take any risks against the swinging and accurate deliveries of both men.

Only captain Pete Inniss, coming in at number six, really looked to push the run-rate up as he top-scored with 31 at a run-a-ball including three boundaries.

But he was to become the first of TJ Ozanne's four wickets when caught at point and none of the other batsmen threatened to match his skipper as Sylvans crept to 129 for nine from their 50 overs.

Ozanne should have finished with more wickets but his team-mates put down a couple of very simple chances to deny him a deserved five-wicket haul.

In reply, all of the Cobo batsmen got starts but there was no major contribution from anyone.

Hunter and Matt Oliver put on 34 for the first wicket before Blane Queripel knocked over the right-hander's castle and Oliver followed soon afterwards, caught at point by Carl Wallbridge off the bowling of Richard Gallienne.

Pete Vidamour and Jeremy Frith took the score up to 78 before they, too, followed in quick succession to Ivan Guille, leaving Stuart Le Prevost and Gary Rich to guide their side home with more than 26 overs to spare.

Cobo now play St Pierre in the last four while the other semi-final is between Optimists and Pessimists.