Rovers record first evening win of season

IT HAD to come to an end, and last night Rovers finally broke their duck in this season's Barclays Premier One. And they did it comprehensively, a nine-wicket defeat of fellow strugglers DB Taverners, a result that could have huge implications as the second half of the season draws on.

Two players were instrumental in the win: fast bowler Matt Jeffery who produced one of the spells of the season, and Richard Hamilton, whose batting has taken on so much more importance now that Richard Headington is out with a cracked bone in an ankle.

Taverners were struggling from the very first ball. That they set even a half-testing target owed much to the batting of Jon Orme and a late rally against the Rovers change bowlers.

Jeffery was unplayable. As the powerful Island bowler prepared for his first ball, stand-in keeper Roger Martin waited some 25 yards back. Spectators joked that there was no way Jeffery would reach Martin, even on the second bounce.

But Martin knew otherwise. He was not waiting for the ball; he was hiding from the stump which Jeffery ripped out, leaving Gordon Irish bemused.

And when the Rovers bowler induced an inside edge from Chris Ashwell's push in his next over, Martin plunged full-length to his left to take a fine catch. Two balls later James Falla was undone by a quick yorker and Taverners were in all sorts of trouble.

Then Aaron Scoones decided it was his turn to play, inducing a rash of shots from the Taverners middle order that they will not want to remember.

Rarely can the Rovers field have had such generous catching practice.

Ten overs gone, 21 for 6, game over, surely? Not quite.

Bill Robilliard could not lay a bat on Jeffery but he nicked, pushed and ran against the Marks, Renouf and Smith. Orme added some drives, pulls and heaves and later on Gary Gauvain swung with impressive results.

The score crept up over three figures and there was almost a target.

But Taverners needed a start of Jeffery proportions and instead they hit the centre of Hamilton's bat.

Assured in defence and at times quite brutal in attack, the Rovers man got his eye in and then belted his side to victory.

There were some excellent shots from the player who not long ago was just a lower-order hopeful.

One cracking over from Gauvain saw Hamilton flick two nonchalantly behind square for four, cover-drive another boundary and add an on-driven four for good measure.

After Jeffery gave Orme a deserved scalp, in came Tim de Putron - unlucky this season not to have featured in an Island squad - all straight bat and perfect technique.

He and Hamilton rubbed buckets of salt into Taverners' wounds, forcing back the field then tipping-and-running. Hamilton brought up a wonderful half-century and then dismissively ended Taverners' torture with a contemptuous flick to the leg boundary.