Glenn makes his journalistic debut with the following report. He was clearly man of the match but you wouldn’t know from his report! He took 4 for 16 and got out the dangerman, Francis, who had scored a century the previous week.
D&T II 165 for 8, Torquay III 100 all out.
After a wet and soggy week there looked to be little chance of any cricket being played over the weekend, but thankfully after a dry night and a bright morning the decision from both captains was to give the game every chance to go ahead.
Dartington and Totnes skipper Gavin Colegate lost the toss and D&T were put into bat on what looked like a very slow and bowler-friendly wicket. Although runs didn’t come quickly for openers Tom Petherick and Gavin, they were doing a fine job of staying patient and playing each ball on its merit. Tom looked in good form as he adopted the role of the aggressor with some flourishing shots, but unfortunately he played one too many and came unstuck when chipping one to a fielder off the bowling of Lear.
Matt Haw made his intentions clear from ball one, when he took advantage of a full toss by hitting a lovely six to his preferred leg side. Matt’s time at the crease was short lived, however, as he gave the faintest of nicks to the wicket keeper. The keeper was the only person to appeal and due to the windy weather it seemed unlikely that the umpire was going to give him out. Matt, being the classy sportsman that he is, knew he had hit the ball and walked giving a perfect example to the young opposition.
Matt’s wicket caused a wobble in the D&T batting line up as the wickets of Nikheel and Kevin quickly followed leaving Dartington on 74/4. A quick and fortunate innings of 27 from Glenn Colegate sped the run rate a little but brother Gavin was playing the anchoring role, seemingly taking his time and making sure the team used their allotted overs. It wasn’t until the 34th over that Gavin finally fell to Lear’s deadly leg spin.
The best was saved until last, Steve Mudge and Joe Burgess made light work of the bowling, and put on a valuable 41 run partnership that saw Dartington reach 165/8
The end of tea brought about the start of Torquay’s innings and they started well with Rob Jack and Paul Carpenter hitting the bad ball and carefully watching the good. It took a stunning ball from opening bowler Jack Allen to break the opening partnership with Carpenter edging the ball through to the keeper. Jack’s opening partner Joe Burgess bowled very well, often beating the bat and was very unlucky not to get a wicket.
Tyler Walton produced another great spell of bowling dismissing Rob Jack and promising young talent Harry Passenger. With these wickets, Torquay started to crumble, and the pressure on Torquay captain Tim Francis to produce a second match winning-innings all proved too much as he swung at a loose one and edged the ball through to the safe hands of Mudge at first slip.
Wickets fell quickly and Nikheel finished things off, taking the final two wickets in four balls.