Devon C

YELVERTON slipped to a heavy defeat against unbeaten leaders Bideford at Langton Park on Saturday.

After winning the toss, Yelverton skipper Richard Coldsby-West asked the vistors to bat first following rain over the previous 24 hours.

Regular Yelverton opening bowlers James Harrison and veteran Chris Pearson made life difficult for the Bideford openers. 

Harrison was unlucky to only pick up a single wicket in his nine over spell (47-1) as numerous edges flew either over or wide of the slip corden and on another day he could have picked up three or four wickets. 

Pearson kept things tight at the other end only conceding four runs off his first eight overs to end up with figures of 9-5-12-0.  The only wicket to fall in the first half of the innings was Matt Allin caught at fly-slip by Rich Townsend for 8 with the score on 44.

Jordi Gilmore joined James Ford and Gilmore looked to be positive from the outset and looked comfortable at the crease, punishing any loose deliveries.  The pair put on 44 for the second wicket before Ford picked out Pat Hobbs in the deep at Long-on and departed for 40.

 Josh King came and went for 5, well caught by Steve Luffman behind off the bowling of Ian Loze.  Chris Luxton joined Gilmore and the pair forged a 108 run partnership for the fourth wicket not without some alarms, but this firmly put Bideford in the driving seat.  Geoff Brain (21-3) bowled Gilmore for 82 with the score on 209 and a further four wickets fell in the last few overs as Bideford closed on 216-8.  Loze (2-33) and Tamsett (1-27 both chipped in with good spells.

Yelverton did well to restrict Bideford to 216.

The Yelverton reply started badly when Tom Watkins was run out. 

The Bideford bowlers generally bowled with pace to dismiss Matt Tamsett (15), Steve Luffman (14) and Ian Loze (13) as the the Bohemians slithered to a dissapointing 74 all-out off 27.2 overs.  Alex Crisp took 6-22 off six overs for the visitors.

Skipper West was philosophical about the defeat, "Once again our bowling and fielding was impressive and we were pleased to keep the league leaders to a gettable total.  However their bowlers were able to exploit the wicket after tea and the lengths they were bowling didn't give us many scoring areas or options off the front foot. 

'The batsmen had to be positive to chase down the total, but the slowness of the wicket led to some false stokes and this was shown by the number of people caught in the slip and gully area.  Good luck to Bideford, they're by far the best side we've played this season, and deserve to be where they are.'

Bideford (20pts) beat Yelverton (4pts) by 142 runs.

n This week, Yelverton are away to Ipplepen.