Published: Wednesday, 1st July, 2009 5:00pm

Finch make it three on the spin

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FINCHAMPSTEAD snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat last weekend to make it three wins in a row in Division Two West.

A superb knock from former skipper Lee Nurse looked to be guiding Basingstoke and North Hants to victory on his return to Finch, but a late flurry of wickets saw the hosts take the win by eight runs.

Captain Russell Lane admitted afterwards that he felt sorry for Nurse but praised his bowlers for refusing to accept defeat.

He said: 'It was a great win for us, especially as it looked like the game was going the other way.

'When they were five down and only needing 40 more runs I thought they were going to win it.

'But credit has to go to my bowlers. They stuck at it and got us through, I take my hat off to them.'

Lane added: 'I did feel sorry for Lee (Nurse), he batted superbly and didn"t deserve to be on the losing side.

'Some of their lower order didn"t really bat responsibly. If they had just taken the odd single and kept Lee on strike they would probably have won.

'But they went for some wild shots and gave their wickets away. I felt for Lee, it was a great innings.'

Basingstoke won the toss and put Finch into bat in glorious sunshine at Finchampstead Park.

All of the home side"s top order got starts but couldn"t kick on with Sam Cheetham (33), Matt Jones (30), Arron Todd (35) and Lane (45) all failing to make 50.

Former Finch star Gavin Tonge removed the top three and went on to claim the wickets of Sam Taylor, Simon Bell, Tom Ansell and Anthony Parson to finish with figures of 7-81 as Finch were all out for 233.

Basingstoke"s reply looked to be well on course as Nurse took control - at one point they were 186-3 before they suffered a disastrous collapse.

Cheetham (4-74) did most of the damage as Nurse saw his team press the self destruct button. In the end they were dismissed for 225 with the skipper unbeaten on 116.