Devon Cricket Board - Bovey need to strengthen despite third-place finish

Bovey need to strengthen despite third-place finish

BOVEY Tracey skipper Andy Fairbairn hopes to build a stronger squad next season after another one standing still in the Premier Division.
Had Bovey defeated Torquay in the final round of fixtures they would have pipped Plymouth for second place.;
A five-wicket defeat by the seaside means Bovey finished joint third with Exmouth. Bovey have now finished third for five seasons running. You can take consistency a bit too far sometimes!
Said fairbairn: “The league table doesn't lie and we finished where we deserved to.
“It's a tough division and every team has players who can win games on their own… as we found out a couple of times this year.
“We haven't been able to get out Sandford's or Torquay's overseas players in the last couple of weeks and that has cost us second place.
“We need to build a bit more of a first team squad at the club. At the moment we are a bit light.
“We have a lot of good young players at the club and we need to keep working with them to develop our first-team players of the future.
“If we can complement our younger players with a new addition or two then that would be ideal.”
Bovey’s 50-over total at the Recreation Ground always looked a bit below par, even if they were put in on a wet one.
Malcolm Lake and the skipper went cheaply to Mitch Pugh (2-32), but Peter Bradley (42) and Matt Golding added 91 for the third wicket without too many issues/
Somerset’s Max Waller (2-27) accounted for Bradley then Golding, leaving Sam Hickenbottom (22) and Lewis Hammett (38) to put on 46 in the only other stand of note.
Torquay skipper Justin Yau’s re-incarnation as bowler – he kept wicket for Devon U21s – continued with a three-for38 haul.
Waller (17) and Matt Thompson (41) got Torquay going them Thompson and Faisal Iqbal (83no) made a 93-run dent in the deficit.
Thompson dipped out on 117 to Ryan Bougourd – and Josh Hunt and Ben Francis followed in a hurry as 117 for one became 126 for four,
Iqbal was still there though and with Pugh (15) and Tom Marrow (14no) steered Torquay to victory with more than six overs to spare.
Torquay finish three places off the bottom, which doesn’t sound as good as 54 points clear of the drop zone.
The Seasiders were in the thick of the relegation battle until late July, then got a spurt on to move away from danger.
“We had a great finish to the season, winning four of our last five games,” said skipper Yau.
“Had we showed a bit more consistency, we would have pushed for a top-half position this year.
“Seven wins wasn't a bad return and we showed glimpses of excellent cricket during the season.
“We will start preparations for 2015 in the hope we can now push on next year.
“The league has been strong this year and we will need to strengthen to meet the demands of playing Premier Division cricket.
“Sidmouth were excellent and in Exmouth, Plymouth and North Devon you have outstanding match winners in there.
“We have competed well at times against these teams but ultimately we don't currently have the strength in depth that those clubs have.”
Yau finished with a plea to the league rule-makers to scrap the run-rate calculations used in rain-affected games and go for Duckworth-Lewis instead.
He said: “It did for us a couple of seasons ago and other clubs experienced it this year.
“There is no way you can implement a straight win/lose format without taking into account wickets being lost during a run chase when play is rain-affected.
“If a side batting first scores 350-3 in their 50 overs, and a side batting second in a rain affected match were 141-9 after 20 overs, there is no way the side batting second should be awarded the victory.
“I'd hope other clubs would see that such a ruling needs rectifying.”

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