The Chairman’s dream of winning the Brockman Cup again, turned to ashes once more on a windswept evening at Stokeinteignhead. The evening had begun in an inauspicious manner when Josh Thomas did not remember he had agreed to play and we were a man short. Sam Jerome stepped up to the breach at short notice. At 5.45 pm the Chairman was phoned by Paul Taylor who was at Foxhole and asking where every body was. The answer, of course, was that we were en route to Stokeinteignhead.
Paul Raven turned up to support us and revealed he had shattered his little toe at nets last week after being hit by a ball from Jono ‘Toecrusher’ Colegate. Jarvs won the toss and elected to bat rather than start without his wicketkeeper. Nikheel was soon dismissed but jarvs and Levin put a good partnership together. Levin was a bit rusty and his usually fine timing took a bit of time to warm up before he unleashed some of his trademark lusty blows. We were in a strong position when Jarvs went for 24. Levin went for 36 and we had about 90 on the board with 5 overs remaining and 7 wickets in hand. Gareth Havard, a whippet between the wickets did a good job, as wickets began to tumble, and we closed on a reasonably competitive 118.
We started well in the field. The Chaiman kept it tight at one end whilst Jono picked up a couple of wickets at the other end. After they came off the scoring rate increased but when Ben Hartridge struck they were 38 for 3 and we looked the favourites. Some loose bowling was punished and Stoke eased home with a couple of overs to spare. The absence of DC and the the injured Dave Griffiths proved costly in the end as the bowlers were found wanting on a surprisingly hard surface.