FOR a pleasant change, the British summer weather condescended graciously to allow some cricket to take place. With bowlers missing and Calstock visiting with, by their own admission, a strong batting side, Ordulph knew they had to play well to keep their championship ambitions on track. Making a bit of a habit of it Sutton won the toss and put Calstock in to bat on the proverbially all too familiar damp track. Calstock's opening pair of McLean and Pomeroy made good headway, punishing some uncharacteristically wayward bowling from Langton. At the other end Smith was bowling with accuracy keeping things tight but with little reward on the wickets front. The breakthrough came in the 15th over with Pomeroy (21) falling to Sutton with another fine catch landing in the safe hands of Sharland. Proving that he is not just a good fielder Sharland was then brought into the bowling attack for the first time with devastating effect. His immediate impact resulted in the removal of the dangerous opener McLean (43), depriving him of what would have been a fine 'half century'. He then proceeded to remove in form Calstock skipper Lambert (23) before he managed to get too settled. Calstock wickets continued to fall at regular intervals but living up to their pre-match talk were still scoring at a reasonable rate. Useful contributions from Stones (29), Hewitt (14) and Temple – Smith (13) looked like enabling Calstock to post a near 200 score. Ordulph's Sharland had other ideas as he got stuck in to the 'tail' with venom. With the support of some tight bowling from Witcher, he continued knocking the Calstock batsmen over with an excellent persistent spell of bowling, finishing up with a record breaking six-wicket haul, the most wickets in one game that any Ordulph player has ever taken. Good catches for Smith and Rotton also paid testament to a solid alert fielding display from Ordulph. Calstock's last wicket fell with their score on 177, with Ordulph reasonably content not to be chasing a 200 plus score. Calstock took to the field upbeat about being able to defend their total, these feelings seemed well founded as Pomeroy and Lambert (2-22) made things difficult for the Ordulph openers with some good accurate bowling, and the early prize scalp of in form Melhuish for a cheap five, the icing on the cake. Rotton (pictured right) was batting with sensible caution but punishing robustly any bad balls. A solid 30 from Wellard helped Ordulph keep up with the run rate, but only just. Calstock kept up the pressure by taking a wicket every time Ordulph looked like getting ahead of the run rate. A useful 23 from Witcher seemed to take the pressure off Ordulph then he fell in 'the long' going big, a nice catch from Chalk off Lambert. The saving grace for Ordulph was the steadfast Rotton who was still there and enough batsmen stayed with him long enough to see Ordulph through to the last over requiring one run to win with two wickets in hand. Sharland, who was now supporting Rotton, played the best 'nought not out' ever to survive a couple of vocal appeals, allowing Rotton to get the run required with four balls left. Ordulph are making too much of a regular thing with close games recently and on this occasion were indebted to Rotton (74no) who 'carried his bat' from start to finish and Sharland with the ball for 'saving their bacon'. Calstock who competed to the bitter end would not be blamed for going away thinking 'if only'. Result: Ordulph Taverners CC 1st XI won by 2 wickets.