All-round ace: Abhishek Jhunjhunwala was presented with his Evesham cap by skipper Jon Gregory before Saturday's fixture.

EVESHAM'S new players made a huge impact as they opened up their Birmingham and District Premier League second division campaign with victory over newly promoted St. George's.

Skipper Jon Gregory elected to bat on what proved to be a challenging wicket and Saturday's hosts made steady progress to post 162 all out after 53 overs.

Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, fresh from playing for the Kolkata Tigers and the victorious India XI in the Indian Cricket League, teamed up with Nathan Gage and the pair contributed the bulk of the runs with the former scoring 60 and the Australian a determined 31.

St George's struggled to cope with the quality and variety of Evesham's attack and were dismissed for 89 with Jhunjhunwala destroying the middle order with a superb spell of four wickets for seven runs in 7.4 overs.

Nick Powell also chipped in with four wickets and made the initial breakthrough to dismiss opener Chris Miller before coming back to mop up the tail.

"It's always good to get off to a winning start," a delighted Gregory declared. "The good thing about the team at present is that there are options with both bat and ball throughout the side."

The match was sponsored by Vale Tyre and Exhausts.

The second string went down narrowly in the reverse fixture after finding it tough going on a wet wicket.

Qasim Amin scored a creditable 40 and, with Matt Jackson and Behram Ali both chipping in, Evesham finished up on 135-5.

The bowling showed a lot of promise with George Robinson picking up four wickets and James Crenan a couple but the Saints reached their target with overs and wickets to spare.

12:11pm Monday 5th May 2008

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