The Ospreys secured a second consecutive victory in the traditional summer charity T20 clash against Mumbles in dramatic fashion on Friday evening.
The hosts batted first and made a steady start after losing Luke Brown, caught on the outfield from the bowling of Sam Davies in the third over. Matt Shepherd (17) and Joe Phillips (19) then helped Mumbles to 66 for 3, Yarnie Guthrie and Matthew Dwyer with the wickets. Two quickfire wickets fell to young centre Matthew Jenkins in the same over saw Mumbles fall to 80-5 in the 11th over, before the arrival of Cameron Protheroe helped the hosts accelerate their scoring in the second half of the innings before he was finally out with the final ball, caught and bowled by Maloney for 38 as Mumbles ended on 164-6.
The Ospreys started well, Dwyer surprising his team-mates with an early 10 in support of Sam Davies. After Ross Jones and Jenkins has surrended their wickets cheaply, the arrival of Ben John, who hit the winning six in the 2011 contest, saw the Ospreys pile on the runs. Davies top scored on 41 (one six) and John hit 37, including a brace of sixes, leaving the team on 118-5 with five overs to go.
Well ahead of where their opponents had been at the same stage, the scoring slowed down markedly, and by the 17th it looked as though the game was slipping away as the Ospreys fell behind the run rate for the first time.
When Joe Rees was out for two in the 19th over it left the Ospreys on 149-8 needing 16 to win. Sam Lewis grabbed two with the final ball of the over, before Maloney took centre stage on his second appearance at the Marespool ground within a week after hitting 24 in a Swalec Premier League game for Ammanford against Mumbles last weekend.
With 14 required from six balls Maloney grabbed two runs, ignoring a runnable third to keep the strike, but after failing to score from the next two it seemed a lost cause. However, two enormous sixes from the left hander took him onto 37 and the team to the target of 165 to seal an unlikely victory in front of a large crowd on an evening that saw funds raised for the Ospreys’ official charity for 2013, Velindre Cancer Centre’s Victory Over Cancer campaign.