A seriously shorthanded Llanarth second team travelled to Penarth on a blazing hot day to be met by a Penarth fourth team captained by former Glamorgan pro Mark Frost playing alongside his young son.

The hosts took pity on the visitors by offering a fielder to help make up the numbers, but this generosity did not extend to allowing Llanarth to bat first once they had won the toss.

The opening bowlers for Llanarth were Nick Fackrell and Christian Dewfield. Fackrell bowled a steady spell with just 22 runs coming from his first seven overs and was again unlucky not to pick up a wicket after beating the bat on a couple of occasions.

Dewfield went for a few boundaries but did take a wicket albeit fortuitously as the batsman obligingly hit a dreadful ball straight to Tim Rice at cover.

A change of bowling saw the introduction of Tom Vaughan at one end whilst the skipper unable to find any other volunteers had a trundle himself from the other end.

Vaughan deceived the batsman with a great delivery to have him stumped, however this brought in Wilkinson who began by thumping two sixes back over the bowler to the short straight boundary.

As the innings neared its end Vaughan picked up another wicket and Wharton had two to finish with the very respectable figures of 2-28. Penarth had however notched up 259-5 with Wilkinson unbeaten on 102.

For the second week running Wharton and Francis got the innings of to a great start scoring freely as Penarth confident in their score gave several young players a chance to bowl.

With 50 on the board and no sign of a breakthrough the Penarth captain brought himself on however far from being overawed Francis decided to give him the treatment and smashed 10 runs from one Mark Frost over who promptly took himself off.

He was replaced by a dibbly dobbly bowler who Wharton immediately hit straight up in the air to be caught. The partnership had nevertheless yielded 81 runs and created a firm foundation. Fortunately this week there was some support for the openers as Keith Spencer batting at three began to put bat to ball. Unable to run anything but the longest of singles it was an ugly but reasonably effective effort and the partnership with Francis blossomed to the point where with less than 100 needed from the last 15 overs Frost had to bring himself back on to bowl. This was always going to be the acid test and whilst Francis was still congratulating himself on hitting the ex-professional bowler out of the attack earlier it wasn't so easy this time.

As the runs dried up Frost again proved his class by bowling both Francis(63) and Spencer(68) and when he took a good catch to get rid of the unlucky Dewfield the game was up. Tim Rice scored 14 as he shepherded the tail to a total of 216-6 ensuring the side obtained maximum batting points and were not bowled out.

Despite the disappointment of not being able to field a full side this was a match to restore one's faith and enjoyment of the game. Penarth had played the match in great spirit by lending a fielder and Mark Frost had limited his own influence in the match to what was required rather than dominating the game as he surely could have done. It was a great opportunity for youngsters on both sides to play with and against a top class player and a few of the older ones enjoyed it too.