ON Sunday 31st May, Llanarth travelled to the Rhondda Valley, hoping to continue their promising start to the season while facing Ton Pentre.

Skipper Heath won the toss and elected to bat on a dry looking track with lush green grass in the outfield that stopped all but the hardest struck ball from reaching the boundary.

Lomax and Baxter opened and both found timing tricky on a wicket that offered a little variable bounce. Baxter in particular missed out on a few short deliveries that he would normally expect to punish.

However he could do nothing about the ball that dismissed him as it leapt from a length to take the shoulder of the bat and went vertical to be easily claimed by the keeper.

A. Dewfield (51) strode to the middle and even he was becalmed by some accurate bowling and offered a couple of chances as he tried to raise the run rate.

Lomax was dismissed attempting to do the same and was quickly followed back to the pavilion by Nowell. C. Dewfield (34 not out) played positively from his first delivery and the father and son combination struck a few much needed boundaries before opening bowler Carter returned to clean up the elder Dewfield for a half-century.

Dewfield Jr's effort ensured the Trees picked up another batting point as the innings closed on a slightly below par 151-5, but a total that certainly gave the Trees something to work with after tea.

The last time the teams met, Ton Pentre's opener, Thomas, conducted an excellent and successful run chase. As batters fell regularly at the other end he withstood everything Llanarth threw at him and the Trees knew that his was the prize wicket in the reply. 

There wasn't an early breakthrough but the home side's openers found scoring just as difficult with only 23 coming from the first dozen overs.

Then Banaras (3-19) struck in the 13th over, but it wasn't Thomas who was dismissed. C. Powell (2-22) bagged a wicket with his first ball but it wasn't the big one. Indeed every time Llanarth seemed to be getting on top, Ton Pentre's Thomas found the boundary a couple of times to reduce the required run rate back to a manageable level. 

At 138-3 just 14 runs were needed from three overs when Powell won an LBW decision– but again it wasn't Thomas. Banaras ensured the game went to the final over as, with seven runs required from eight balls, he struck twice with the final deliveries of his spell, but Thomas would be facing the final over.

The opener picked his moment well and smashed the second delivery for a maximum to tie the scores and then scrambled the winning run with two balls to spare, finishing with a fine 83 not out as Ton Pentre won by four wickets.

Llanarth will be disappointed with the defeat but there was no shortage of effort from the Trees, perhaps just missing that little spark of brilliance that would have bagged a few more runs to push the total out of reach, or nail the wicket of Thomas that would have won the game.

That said there was no shame in losing the match to a very fine, beautifully paced and chance-less knock.