Henry the Great

With Covid 19 disrupting fixtures around the Hampshire League, Liphook & Ripsley IIs arranged a 40 over friendly game away vs Portchester on Saturday 1st August.

Liphook & Ripsley IIs, captained by Harry Munt, put on 233 runs for 6 wickets in the first innings. The stand-out batsman was young Henry Amis, a rising star Hampshire County U13 player, who went in at number 3 and hit an impressive 123 runs not-out, which included 18 fours. Amis (thirteen years old) played a composed and mature innings for his age which saw him put on partnerships with six other batsmen, notably: Richard Harvey (27), Sam Harvey (21) (father and son respectively), and Dylan Grimes (18). There were good bowling performances by Portchester’s Derek Kelly and Doug Noyce who each took two wickets.

Portchester, captained by Dave Pitcher, battled to reach the large innings total set by Liphook & Ripsley. Doug Noyce followed his good bowling spell with 27 runs, Jack Girling made a gritty 16 runs in the middle order, and there was a final flourish by Nathan Lever who made 22 runs in 9 balls. However, Liphook’s bowlers proved to be too strong and Portchester were all bowled out for 109 runs in the 36th over. Liphook’s stand-out bowler was its youth coach Steve Saycell who took 4 wickets for 13 runs in 8 overs. There were also good bowling performances by pace bowler Dylan Grimes who took 2 wickets, leg-spinner Anthony White who also took 2 wickets, and by off-spinner Taskin Akash who took 1 wicket for 8 runs off 8 overs. U18 Luke Anstey displayed his promising talent as an opening pace bowler. The final wicket to fall which brought the game to a close was taken by the batting star Henry Amis who underlined his all-rounder abilities.