WITH several fresh faces and a new captain Llanarth CC seconds also had the experience of a new venue as they travelled to Aberdare for the club's opening game of the season.

Skipper Simon Wharton won an important toss and had no hesitation in asking the hosts to bat first on a decidedly, if understandably soft wicket.

New boy Dave Lomax soon made an impression picking up two quick wickets and with Wyndham Hackett-Pain keeping things tight from the other end Aberdare lost another batsman to a suicidal run out.

When Lomax was rested, 15 year old Ben Jones came into the attack with devastating effect. His spell of four for five all bowled ripped the heart out of the Aberdare line up and left them reeling on 34-7.

A period of consolidation followed as the batsmen went into defensive mode. There were tight spells from Craig Whistance and Nick Fackrell making his debut for the club but neither were able to make a further breakthrough and the left handed Phil Green in particular was growing in confidence and beginning to score freely.

Eventually Derek Whistance produced a good delivery to take the eighth wicket and when the returning Lomax knocked over Green for 47 the last pair were happy to play out the final overs taking the score to 101-9 at the close.

The Llanarth openers Lomax and Wharton began the reply carefully taking several overs to play themselves in and get attuned to the slow pace of the wicket.

Soon however Wharton began to up the tempo and several lusty blows found their way to the boundary. The slow outfield however meant that a number did not resulting in the batsmen having to run more threes than they cared to.

This exertion clearly influenced their tactics as they endeavoured to avoid running by making sure the ball did cross the boundary. Both batsmen could have perished as three catches went down but they rode their luck and put together a stand of 77 before Wharton(42) was undone by a change of bowling and clean bowled playing an inelegant shot to the first delivery of young Nathan Spain.

Two overs later Spain struck again picking up a second wicket, but it was too little and far too late and fittingly it was Lomax who capped a fine all round performance by taking Llanarth to victory with a six over mid-wicket which also brought up his own 50.

Amazingly the Llanarth innings included 14 fours and a six but only two singles.