On the last Saturday of the season, Bashley 3rds made the long trek through the Bank Holiday traffic to Southsea to play a confident and high flying Portsmouth 2nd team.Portsmouth won the toss and elected to bat first but lost a couple of early wickets to Bashley’s young Tom Harris (2 for 57). Harrison Glew (1 or 14) then had the opener Mitchell caught for 27 to reduce Portsmouth to 59 for 3 after 18 overs. Further wickets were hard to come by as a steady partnership of 97 in 22 overs between Palmer- Goddard (51) and Wood (53) kept the Bashley bowlers at bay. Then as the Portsmouth batsmen started to hit out towards the end of the innings the remaining 7 wickets all fell in the last 6overs. Thirteen year old Toby Mills was impressive with a very tidy spell of 10 overs 1 for 43. Fellow spinner Jack Ransom took 4 for 54 and together with two run outs Portsmouth were all out in the final over for 199.

After tea Bashley lost openers Ryan Taylor (8) and Lawrence Drake (15) early as they fell to 29 for 2 off 10 overs. Senior batsmen Graham Pardey and Ian Britton (52) then led the recovery together with an excellent partnership of 70 before Pardey was stumped for 23. Britton carried on to a well deserved half century until he was caught for 52. Geoff Bettle (30) continued the resistance and together with Will Taylor (17) brought the equation down to 37 runs off the last 4 overs for victory. However they were both dismissed as Bashley lost 3 wickets in the next over to finally extinguish any victory hopes. The innings eventually closed with Bashley on 171 for 9 and Portsmouth victors by 28 runs in a well contested final match of an enjoyable season.