Roborough v Belstone
BELSTONE travelled to Roborough on Sunday for their first match in division 1 of the Partnership Publishing League. Unfortunately for the visitors, the home team was too strong, ending up comfortable winners by 89 runs.
Roborough won the toss and decided to bat first. Belstone made an excellent start with Aiden Easterbrook clean bowling the opener Moffatt with his second delivery.
At the other end, Jonathan Parsons bowled well and was unlucky not to have two or three wickets in his first few overs.
The Roborough batsmen gradually took command and kept the scoreboard ticking over.
Pete Gross continued his fine start to the season by taking two quick wickets to bring Belstone back into the match.
This brought Rob Gaylard (74) to the crease and with the help of Goodchild (31) and Berry (15), he ensured that Roborough would finish with a competitive total of 214 in their 40 overs.
Once again, Belstone?s openers Gross (20) and Colin Wyatt (20) got the visitors off to a good start.
After Wyatt was dismissed with the score on 29, Dennis Edwards (27) and Gross continued to play well and at 66/1 in the 16th over Belstone were in with a chance.
However, the dismissal of Gross to the last ball of the 16th over brought about a middle order collapse against the spin of Rob Gaylard (9-2-26-2) and Roger Berry (5.1-0-20-5).
In the space of seven overs Belstone lost six wickets for just ten runs to fall to 76/7 in the 23rd over.
Harry Bushin (33) played sensibly and with the help of the tailenders ensured Belstone passed 100 to at least earn a batting point.
Fittingly, the last wicket fell to Berry leaving the visitors with a disappointing total of 125.
This Sunday, Belstone are at home in a friendly against Cheriton Fitzpaine with a 2.30pm start at Rew Meadow.