Dartington and Totnes First Eleven continued their unbeaten start to the season when they coasted to a seven-wicket victory over recently relegated Babbacombe at Walls Hill.
For the second week in succession, D&T captain Harry Baxendale won the toss and elected to bowl first and the visitors got off to a superb start when Damon Callond was bowled by Phil Snyman for 2. Soon after the second wicket fell when Dean Durrant was bowled by Jono Colegate for a duck
Runs were proving hard to come by for the Babbacombe batsmen as the D&T bowlers bowled tight lines and gave nothing easy away and soon had reduced the hosts to 16-3 when Alex Hartridge bowled Steve Bowman for 1. The next partnership was the largest of the innings as surviving opener Tom Wood and Rob Redding set about rebuilding.
The pair added 35 runs in 18 overs before Redding was caught in the deep by Andy Bligh for 9, to become Chris Cook’s first wicket. Skipper Baxendale then took his first wicket when he bowled Seb Loram for 0 and in his next over had Wood caught by Snyman for 16 from 99 balls.
Snyman then returned into the attack and bowled Ian Sosnowski for 2 and Baxendale picked up his third and fourth wicket when he had Jamie Peters LBW for 0 and Paul Bates caught at slip by Cook to become the fourth batsman to fall without troubling the scorers.
In his next over he completed his five-wicket haul when he had last man Ben Passmore caught behind by Alex Winch to finish with the outstanding figures of 5 wickets for 4 runs.
It had been a superb bowling and fielding effort from D&T making runs hard to come by for the home batsmen with every bowler picking up at least one wicket and none of them conceding more than two runs an over.
While the pitch had showed some uneven bounce, D&T openers Cook and Snyman showed the home team how to progress an innings, confidently adding 44 for the first wicket in 10 overs before Cook was LBW to Tim Goodwin for 14. Goodwin then picked up a second when he bowled Joe Parker for 1.
With 8 runs needed, Snyman was LBW to spinner Paul Bates for 27, leaving it to Baxendale and Colegate to see D&T to a well-deserved seven-wicket victory with 27 overs remaining.
It had been an impressive all-round display on the road from D&T with the bowlers backed up by some tight fielding leaving the batsmen the relatively simple task of knocking off the 62 runs required.
After two matches, D&T sit at the top of the C Division West Table and return home to Foxhole next Saturday to entertain Bridestowe while the Second Eleven are away at St Marychurch Old Boys.