Devon Cricket League 1st XI C Division

Stoke Gabriel 297-6, Kingsbridge 192 all out.

Stoke Gabriel 1st X1 (20 points) beat Kingsbridge 1st X1 (seven points) by 105 runs

Saturday saw Kingsbridge travel to Stoke Gabriel looking for a positive result to have any realistic chance of challenging for promotion.

Leading up to the game preparations were not ideal, with injuries to two key players.

On winning the toss, Kings skipper James Fletcher elected to bowl with the intention of picking up early wickets with the new ball.

However, the Stoke Gabriel batsmen had different ideas and made use of the good pitch, albeit with some early luck.

Much of the bowling was good and frustratingly when the ball went aerial it wasn't finding the fielders and instead ending up in gaps, much to the annoyance of the team and the opening bowlers Richard Carr and Neal Peach.

Kings continued to plug away, and the breakthrough was eventually made in the 22nd over, with Dan Hardy taking the wicket in his first over with the score on 94. Kings tried to get a foothold in the match, but Stoke had set a good platform to consolidate the innings. In fact, the hosts almost tripled their score from the halfway point to the end of the innings, ending up with a mammoth 297-6 off their allotted 46 overs.  

A late flurry of wickets for Kings was as good as it got, including a smart catch from Tony Treeby at short fine leg from an attempted Dilscoop off the bowling of Carr.

Kings, in response, didn't get off to the best of starts, losing Dan Hardy LBW to a ball that appeared to be sliding down the leg side with the score on 17.

This brought Bhanu de Silva to the crease to join Fletcher and the pair quickly got on top of the Stoke bowling.

Both were finding the boundary regularly and looking accomplished at the crease until Fletcher was magnificently caught one-handed on the cover boundary for 29. This left the score on 74-2 in the 13th over.

The fall of the second wicket brought Carr to the crease, who quickly got into his work with de Silva, taking the score past 100. De Silva reached his first fifty of the season just before drinks.

Kings were nicely poised on 137-2 off 23 overs at the drinks interval, with the run chase very much on and the Stoke fielders starting to feel agitated.

Both Carr and de Silva continued where they had left off before drinks until de Silva was trapped LBW for an excellent knock of 66, which included 11 fours and two sixes.

Carr soon followed, again trapped LBW to a ball that kept low for a well made 36.

The wicket of Carr brought about a major batting collapse that wasn't foreseen. From 166-3 in the 27th over Kings were bowled out for 192 at the end of the 40th over with seven wickets lost for just 26 runs.

It was a disappointing end to what had looked promising at the mid-way point of the Kings innings. This Saturday sees Kings home to Ottery St Mary looking to avenge the defeat suffered earlier in the season.