Seconds ease to victory over youthful Stoke side: 6th June 2015

Stoke Gabriel  II 103 all out,  Dartington & Totnes II 107 for2

D&T (20 points) beat Stoke Gabriel (2 points) by 8 wickets

On a lovely sunny day at Stoke, Dartington & Totnes won the toss and elected to bowl against relatively inexperienced Stoke side.

Stoke did have an experienced opener in Doug Ansley and he soon showed his class by twice driving Mudge to the boundary.   At the other end Reeves was struggling against Dave Griffiths’ movement .  Reeves  departed after he edged Griffiths to Gavin Colegate at first slip, whereupon  wickets began tumbling with some regularity.  Griffiths ( 2 for 25) was probably the pick of D&T’s bowlers and frequently beat the bat. He soon bowled new man Smith with a full delivery.   Mick Rusling came into the attack and Bowden was immediately run out following a good piece of fielding by Simon Heyes.   Rooney was bowled in the same over hitting across the line.   Mudge (2 for 29) bowled Dwyer for 2 and trapped Robinson lbw for 4 and Rusling brought one back to bowl South African, Asher.    At 49 for 7 Stoke skipper, Sam Hill, joined Ansley and batted with determination and aggressive intent.   Ansley, who had been responsible for the majority of Stoke’s runs, seemed likely to carry his bat but the introduction of Steve Breed, immediately proved to be his downfall.  Breed sent down one of his characteristic slow looping deliveries which Ansley missed and watched agonisingly as it hit his stumps.  He departed shaking his head after making a well -crafted 45.  Hill hit several  lusty blows  and the score began to creep up before Breed (3 for 14) finished the job, bowling Goodall and trapping Cooper lbw for 7, leaving Hill on 30 not out.

Jon Perkin and Steve Mackinlay opened the batting for D&T and after getting a look at the bowlers were soon scoring  at around 7 runs per over.   It didn’t help Stoke’s cause when their skipper developed a hip injury and removed himself from the attack.  Mackinlay was the more aggressive of the D&T openers hitting two sixes and six fours.   He pulled one six behind square which just cleared the rope and the other six was a beautifully struck straight drive which went into the adjacent road.  He particularly enjoyed the pull shot- some of which achieved more height than distance.  Perkin gave excellent support and also hit six fours with some delicate late cuts.  Mackinlay completed his fifty and  it seemed that the pair would see D&T safely home.  However, with the score on 92 Mackinlay was caught as short mid-wicket off Cooper’s first delivery for 51.  Neil Colegate (9)  joined Perkin and soon hit two boundaries only to be bowled by Bowden with the scores level.    Perkin  finished the job off in fine style  with a boundary and remained unbeaten on 34.

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