Belstone v Harberton

Belstone's season finished with a whimper when an uninspired batting performance against Harberton at Rew Meadow left them 47 runs short of the 164-run target.

Exactly half of these Harberton runs were scored by opener Jack Skuse who played cautiously at the start, using his long reach to push well forward to negate any uneven bounce. Later he launched into a series of savage pulls which brought four sixes over the midwicket boundary before he was third out for 82, stumped by Simon Tremain off Trevor Oats, with the score on 133 in the 33rd over.

Toby Tobias (22) kept him company during the third wicket stand of 70 but from this point on Belstone came back into the game, taking seven wickets for 26 runs, thanks to two smart run outs by Scott Tremain, and a typically aggressive Harry Bushin spell (8-2-20-4).

In reply Belstone's top four were all back in the pavilion with only 26 on the board, three of them to the naggingly accurate Keith Shepherd (5-0-18-3) and the other to the very economical Ember Lagden (5-2-8-1).

David Binns injected some momentum but when he holed out on the midwicket boundary for 22 the run-rate slipped well behind the required rate with Chris Walpole scratching around for 17 runs in 22 overs.

Oats (16) and last man Jonathan Parsons (10 not out) held up Harberton for five overs but Oats was out to the final ball of the 40-overs to give Bob Owers his third wicket and the visitors a comfortable victory.

Harberton beat Belstone by 47 runs

n This Saturday (18th September) there is a car boot sale at the Belstone ground with sellers admitted from 9am and buyers from 10am – details from 01837 840498.