MONDAY, MAY 18
DEVON'S grip on the Minor Counties KO Cup is looking precarious after yesterday's pool match against Wiltshire fell foul of the weather.
Overnight rain left Wiltshire's ground at Trowbridge underwater in places – and volunteers did well to mop it up ahead of possible late start around 1pm.
A second wave of heavy rain put paid to any ideas of a shorter game and could have denied Devon the chance of defending the trophy they won at Lord's last season by beating Berkshire.
Wiltshire and Devon are joint top of the group, but Devon have no more games to play while Wiltshire have Cornwall to meet in a final round of fixtures.
Devon are two points ahead of Cornwall with two to play for.
As Cornwall's game away to Berkshire at Newbury was also rained off yesterday, there is a lot riding on the meeting between the third-placed Duchy and leaders Wiltshire at St Austell in two weeks time.
Devon will qualify from the group for the knockout stages if Wiltshire beat Cornwall or the game is rained-off. If Cornwall win the pocket calculators will come out to see if their run rate has improved enough to put them ahead of Devon and into second place.
“It's nothing personal, but we are all massive Wiltshire supporters now,” said Devon captain Bob Dawson.
“A Wiltshire win is what we are rooting for – if they can't win a narrow defeat may still do it for us.
“If we are level on points with Cornwall after the last game is played, it comes down to net run rate. Ours is 0.1 better than theirs now, which means Cornwall have to do better than win by 50 runs to get in front of us.
“If Cornwall win by miles we are out: if it's tight we could yet go through. Wiltshire won their first two games by big margins so here's hoping they do the same at St Austell.
“If we do go out this way it would be so frustrating as we dominated the games we won against Cornwall and Berkshire. We played poorly against Herefordshire and that is what is going to catch us out.”