One from the archives: Cockington v Dartington May 2003

Cockington II 135 all out, Dartington II  62 all out.

Dartington entertained Cockington in their first match of the season at Foxhole.  Most of Darts players had extracted the mothballs from their whites, with the exception of one stalwart with a hyphenated surname, who had obviously forgotten to put them in.

Following last season’s Colegate diaspora Darts were in the unusual position of fielding less Colegates in their team than the opposition.

Dartington won the toss and Captain Coish put the ‘Colegate rich’ opposition in to bat.  Pete Glen and Richard Stocks opened the bowling for Darts on a very slow wicket. Cockington reached 17 before Stocks trapped Gladwin lbw with a ‘shooter’.  Glen had a miserly opening spell for no reward.  Dumont and Scott (41) patiently accumulated runs.  Dumont showed great resolve employing a very effective technique and scored 43 before being bowled by Phil Stevens, when trying to accelerate the scoring.  This heralded a collapse from 92 for 2 to 135 all out.  Martin Oaks-Monger had Paget lbw for a duck.  Neil Colegate departed for the same score, being brilliantly caught low down by Stocks off John Warmby, going for a big hit. Gavin Colegate drew admiration from several of his former team mates with a stylish cover drive, before succumbing to Warmby, who took 3 for 22 in his first match for Darts.  Mudge (13) hit a full blooded drive off Oaks-Monger (2 for 16 off eleven overs) only for Glen to take an outstanding low catch.  Stocks, 3 for 22, came back to pick up 2 cheap wickets.

Darts had done well in restricting the visitors to 135.  The question was did they have the batting to secure victory?  The answer was a resounding ‘no’.

When Darts replied Darren Colegate, the highest scoring Colegate on the day, hit a sweet four before Mudge bowled him with a ball that  kept low –but not as low as Darren thought!   Fellow opener, Miles Sydenham, batted sensibly and confidently for 40 minutes, before being caught off Mudge for 9 going for a big hit.  Pete Coish (10) batted responsibly and dug in after being dropped from an early injudicious shot, before becoming Mudge’s third victim.  Arran Rusling was the pick of Dartington’s batsmen playing a mature and stylish innings with some fine wristy strokes.  He resisted for over an hour and scored at least 9* before becoming ninth man out attempting a big hit. Unfortunately the rest of the batsmen barely troubled the scorer, (though the scorer* had trouble getting the scores correct).  Cockington’s Captain Scott did the damage, taking 4 for 9, bamboozling Darts middle order with his cunningly floated spin.

A reasonably good start to the season for Darts in the field, but the batting?  Things can only get better, can’t they?

 

 

 

 

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