Devon C West

Ashburton v Yelverton firsts

AFTER the disappointment of their first week washout, the Bohemians travelled to Ashburton buoyed by the arrival of their overseas player, Christiaan van Niekerk who is over from South Africa to hone his cricket skills in UK conditions.

Ashburton won the toss and elected to field first. Openers Geoff Brain and Rob Grove put on 35 for the first wicket before Grove was bowled for 19.

Zubair went cheaply with the score on 38 before veteran Brain and skipper Rich West put on 26 for the third wicket. West was dropped before he had scored and went on to top score with 57. He had useful partnerships with Pat Hobbs (28) and Marc Glover (11) as the Bohemians totalled 175-9 off their 45 overs.

In the circumstances on a wet wicket it looked about a par score.

In reply, Ashburton struggled to build meaningful partnerships with wickets tumbling at regular intervals.

Some tight bowling and athletic fielding from the visitors put pressure on the batsmen and despite a 49 run partnership for the sixth wicket, the Bohemians closed out the game in the last over, with veteran Terry Roe taking the tenth wicket with the score 167 with the last ball of the game to wrap up an eight run victory.

The wickets were shared around with van Niekerk (3-41), Rich Townsend (2-20) and Sam Crompton (2-13) making the main inroads.