DEVON V GWENT
It was a beautiful day to start the summer campaign and on a brand new ground at Brixham. After working hard during the winter workshops hopes were high of a good start to the season.
Gwent batted first on a wicket of variable bounce, which sometimes kept low. Opening bowlers Jack Thomas and Sam Boddington – both making their county debuts -- produced lively, encouraging opening spells.
Luke Cummins and Henry Gater kept things tight in the middle of the innings. The pick of the bowlers was spinner Dominic Bess whose eight overs ended with decent figures of 2-28.
Gwent’s total of 180-7 was gettable on a decent track and huge outfield.
We had fielded ok – but not brilliantly. There were some unforced, basic errors such as straightforward backing up which let us down. Another cause for concern was the number of wides – 21 – and that was with the umpires using ‘common sense’ on calling them.
Forty overs in the sun is also a long time and concentration levels can dip as a consequence.
Wickets fell early on which didn’t help our run chase, but skipper Marcus Hoddinott held things together with his 21 and his stand of almost 60 with Henry Gater (28) put us back on track.
Unfortunately, the all-clear to go for the win was read as the go-ahead for a rash of poor shot selections and the tumbling of wickets. Dominic Bess showed the rest how to bat lower down the order with his 24. We ended up 24 runs short.
Spirits were not dampened by the defeat and there were many more good things rather than bad to come out of the game.
SCOREBOARD: Gwent 180-7 (Bess 2-22); Devon 156 (Hoddinott 21, Gater 28, Bess 24).
Devon lost by 24 runs.
Jim Parker