North Devon division four
Belstone v Braunton
ALL of Belstone's hard work in the field restricting visitors Braunton to 162 all out was undone in a disastrous ten balls at the top of their reply when the first three batsmen were all out for ducks. This opening North Devon League division four fixture was played on a sluggish drying pitch which made stroke-play difficult.
Belstone reduced Braunton to 119-8 after 37 overs with only Waleed Iqbal (44) batting with confidence as Tom Fogerty (9-2-22-1), Peter Harlow (9-1-28-2), Thomas Boother (7-2-9-2) and Jimmy Ewen (6-1-18-2) all bowled economically and accurately.
But then John Higgs dominated the latter stages, skilfully protecting the lower order and hitting some powerful drives so that the last three wickets added 43 runs in six overs. Higgs finished with a fine 65 not out, including two 6s and four 4s.
Trying to recover from a score of one (a wide) for three was always going to be a tall order but Belstone did reach 65 for five before the father-son combination of Simon and Scott Tremain was ended when Simon was leg before to Gary Gomez for 13.
Skipper Scott was seventh out for a defiant 31 and then it became a case of whether Belstone could reach half of Braunton's total to record a couple of points. This was just achieved leaving Braunton worthy winners by 74 runs.
All their bowlers were on-song with Daniel Crowcombe (5-1-9-1) and Martin Lewis (8-2-14-3) causing the initial collapse, while Gomez (4-0-13-2) and Taylor Latham (3.1-0-13-3) finished off the innings.