ANDOVER fell to a narrow defeat in their first Southern Electric Premier League home game of the season against newly promoted Rowledge.

New skipper Matt Hooper started his campaign badly by losing the toss and was asked to field first on a sunny day at London Road, although not necessarily a bad outcome because the pitch seemed to be firm with a little moisture still around from the deluge on Thursday.

New ball pair Darron Augustus and David Taylor bowled with accuracy and hostility to restrict the batsmen and the pressure finally told as Taylor found the edge of Morant’s bat to Ali Hooper at second slip.

The openers were replaced with the metronomical James Knight and the pace of Mike Adams, who continued to give the batsmen little to play with.

The Rowledge top order kept their cool and ran extremely well between the wickets, keeping the scoreboard ticking over.

The introduction of spin saw the fall of two quick wickets to leg-spinner Danny Foy who picked up Gleave with a well disguised flipper and captain Lloyd lbw with a top-spinner.

Rowledge’s overseas player Alex Bloomfield then guided the away side into a good position to post a big total.

The Australian reached his half century in under 50 balls but was undone by a Adams’ slower ball and at 200-4 with nine overs remaining, the threat was there but Andover squashed the Rowledge tail with clinical fielding and tight bowling.

Taylor returned to pick up the wicket of run-machine Chris Yates (Jnr) for a well made 35 and Hooper backed this up with a superb run-out in the deep to remove Metcalfe.

The pace of Augustus and Adams was too much for the tail as the runs dried up and two more wickets fell to leave Rowledge on 229-8 off their 50 overs.

Hooper started the run chase in his typical positive fashion, hammering 27 before being caught going for another big shot.

Augustus edged to first slip and Will Arnold was involved in a calamity mix up, crashing into batting partner Glyn Treagus when running to take a single, to end up being run-out.

This set the stage for another Taylor-inspired run chase as the in-form batsman played his natural game, launching the first ball six.

Taylor and Treagus ticked along nicely but found boundaries hard to come by and both got to their halfcentury and then soon departed to leave a big task for the lower order needing 80 off the last ten.

Powerful Max Souter made his intentions clear also smearing his first ball for a straight six but was also caught up in a bizarre run out mix-up that left Andover reeling.

The tail tried their best, with Matt Knight particularly impressive with 22, but the run-rate was just too high for them and the innings closed 25 runs short on 204 all out to give Rowledge a well fought victory.