Dartington and Totnes made it 11 wins from 11 matches with a thumping 143 run win over Babbacombe at Foxhole.
Babbacombe skipper Rob Redding won the toss and elected to bowl first in overcast conditions. His decision looked a good one when South African Dean Durrant had opener Chris Cook caught at midwicket for a duck. This bought D&T skipper Harry Baxendale to the crease, and alongside surviving opener Phil Snyman, the pair added 63 for the second wicket.
The partnership was broken when Baxendale could only pick out Durrant off Matt Kierman for 33 to leave D&T 78-2. Snyman, who is in great form with the bat, looked nailed on for another league 50. However, this wasn’t to be the case as on 49 he edged a Steve Broad delivery to keeper Redding with the score on 104-3.
Tom Chevallier joined Jono Colegate at the crease and the pair added 49 for the fourth wicket before Chevallier was caught by Paul Sutherland off Jamie Peters for 17. Jim Lowden joined Colegate in the middle and both were still there at the end of the innings. Both batsman played authoritatively, running well and punishing a tiring Babbacombe bowling attack.
Colegate in particular looked in superb touch striking 11 boundaries in his innings. When the 45 overs finally ran out, D&T found themselves 235-4, with Colegate unbeaten on 91, Lowden on 23 not out and their partnership being an unbroken 82.
It had been another superb batting performance led by Jono Colegate but ably assisted by Snyman and Baxendale. The four wickets were shared amongst the Babbacombe bowlers with Peters having the best bowling figures of 1/37 from his 9 overs.
Babbacombe began their innings knowing that they needed to get off to a solid start if they were going to chase down the imposing total. Their opening pair of Sutherland and Redding began positively adding 27 valuable runs for the first wicket. However, before they could add anymore, Sutherland top edged a Nick Dennis delivery to Jake Engstrom to fall for 14.
What followed next was a mini-collapse for the visitors who lost four wickets for only 10 runs. The first one to fall was Billy Allcock who could only drive a Baxendale delivery to Colegate at short cover to fall for 0. Opener Redding, who had batted patiently, then edged a Colegate delivery to keeper Alex Winch to be dismissed for 4. The third wicket of the collapse fell 5 runs later when Broad could only pick out Snyman in the covers to fall for 2, Colegate the bowler and Babbacombe found themselves struggling on 39-5 when Ian Sosnowski was LBW to Baxendale for a duck.
Will Biddles and Dean Durrant found themselves in the middle and had the task of rebuilding the innings. The visitors knew that the pair would have to stick around if they were to have any chance of winning. However, they could only add 15 runs before the former was caught and bowled by Colegate for 11.
With his next delivery, Colegate picked up a fourth wicket when Peters could only edge behind to Winch to fall for a golden duck. Ben Passmore joined Durrant at the crease and together the pair added 10 runs before Colegate bowled Passmore for 5 to complete his five-wicket haul. It had been a superb bowling display from Colegate who constantly troubled the batsman with his pace and unerring accuracy.
Number 10 Paul Bates joined Durrant and the pair set about taking Babbacombe to a respectable score. Together they added 18 frustrating runs before good work in the deep by Tyler Walton saw the end of Bates, run out for 6. It was left to Cook to take the final wicket, Matt Kierman LBW for the fourth duck of the innings as Babbacombe were dismissed for 92.
It had been another superb win for D&T which extended their lead at the top of the C Division West to 59 points. Colegate had been the star of the show with 91 not out with the bat and 5-16 with the ball. Other notable contributions came from Snyman who made 49 and Baxendale who made 33 and took two wickets. D&T are away to Bridestowe next Saturday in what should be a competitive match.