ABERGAVENNY'S First XI suffered a cruel blow this week when their South African coach Richard Levi was controversially banned by the league for being an alleged professional.

Despite sterling work by Club Chairman Tony Coles, the original hearing and subsequent appeal found in favour of Tondu, the club who had filed the official complaint.

This now means Abergavenny and cricket watchers throughout South East Wales will be deprived of one the best players even to grace the League.

Despite this setback, Beavers players will now unite even stronger as a team and look to put this ostracizing decision behind them.

This was evident immediately in the opening exchanges of the home league match against Pentyrch on saturday.

Aber skipper Steve Brown lost the toss and opposing captain Kristian Bell had no hesitation in batting first.

Aber's opening duo of Nathan 'spitting Cobra' Byrne and John 'military medium' Denning had the visitors in a good deal of bother and both were dropped early in the piece before Brad Wadlan was run out by Gavlar Heritage for 25.

However, this was about as good as it got for the home attack as both Mike Barber and Alex Senn played some excellent cricket in the blazing sun as Pentyrch rattled up 289-2.

In reply, Greg Fury played a much more circumspect innings and was unlucky to be given out for 15.

James Schofield and Andrew Jones (28) moved the score along to 59 before Jones missed a straight one.

Skipper Brown (33) and Schofield then exercised the game plan of big shots mixed with good running and the Beavers hopes were raised as they brought up the 130 in the 30th over, this left a tough, but reachable target of 160 in the last 20.

However, the chase stopped almost as it started as first Brown, then Schofield went in consecutive overs to leave the Beavers reeling at 137-4.

Some good mid innings batting from Tonto Evans (32) and Craig Barnsley (33) saw the Beavers over the maximum batting point target of 225, however the innings closed on 231-8 leaving Pentyrch with a winning draw.

Aber take seven points from the game and will look to cement their unity next week with an away trip to Newport.