1stXI Season opener V Sidmouth - Mount Wise
Following a complete rain off against Exeter on the opening day of the season, the 1stXI faced tough start to the season against the red hot league favourites Sidmouth.
New captian, Monks, won the toss and had no hesitation asking Sidmouth to have first crack on the new Mount Wise pitch. With a new look team from last year – league debuts for Luke Jury, Nick Read, Rob Button, Passi, Matt Hooper and returning Steve Luffman, early signs were promising as Dave starting swinging the ball and JP (once his hands had warmed up!) looked dangerous. Unfortunately the luck was with Sidmouth as some very good LBW shouts were turned down. Bess looked uncomfortable but had a knack of either clearing the fielder or dropping it inches short of the waiting fielders. JP eventually claimed the maiden wicket of the season, having Griffiths caught by Chilli for 28 with the score on 71.
Chilli replaced Dave and produced one of the spells of his life, landing the ball on a sixpence with a little bit of movement both ways. Bess ticked along before Chills had him caught for 67 by newbie Matt Hooper. Han*censored* started to push things along and found the short straight boundary to his liking. Luckily he tried one big shot to many and Charlie had him caught well at long off by another debutant Nick Read for 47. In his final over Chilli had flashbacks to last year at Sandford when a drop prevented him claiming a five-for when a tough chance was spilled in the deep, but managed to stay composed and claim a very much deserved fifth wicket with his final delivery, his first five wicket haul for the club – final figures of 5-46 off thirteen overs. Nicholls bowled well to pick up two wickets also. Sidmouth had set us the difficult challenge of 217 to win.
Monks and Tomsy opened the batting in the dark and managed to see the new ball off against a hostile new ball pairing on Bess and Somerset youngster Dibble. Monks got a wake up call as Bess rattled him on the helmet with a quick bouncer before falling in the 10th over with the score on 24. Aussie Luke Jury got a taster of Devon wickets as he got a “bouncer” which hit about 3 inches up off stump. Unfortunately wickets kept falling at regular intervals, meaning a win was always going to be out of our grasp. Dave and Tomsy managed to bat time and put on a decent 56 for the 6th wicket – the losing draw target of 144 becoming more realistic. Bess came back into the attack and accounted for Burkey, Nicholls and JP and the pressure was back on us. Fortunately we were able to bat out the remaining overs and scraped over the 150 mark to pick up a further valuable batting bonus point. Tomsy carried his bat for an unbeaten 82. The only slight negative would be that five ducks and a 1 from our batting line up will hopefully be our worst return for the season!
Overall a result I am sure most people would have taken at the start of the day and a solid start to the campaign.
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