Glorious weather and what a fantastic facility Brixham CC now have, magnificent pavilion, huge flat playing area, new square, nets, score box - superb! A warm welcome, a guided tour, old familiar faces and some young faces, nervous ones, five debutants, no shirts, no trousers. We managed. Forgot the kitchen sink? No just the water in the freezer!

New players welcomed and the warm up goes well. The only thing missing from the discussion with the umpires and toss of the coin was the Sky Sports cameras and Nasser Hussain! We win the toss and bat. Not sure that was the right decision?

Davis Ackford and Billy Searle open and Gwent bowl good lines on a pitch, which has variable bounce. The ball is swinging making it difficult and Ackford gets a good one and is caught behind. Alistair Chilcott and Searle take the score onto 22 before Chilcott is bowled by an away swinging Yorker and Searle follows shortly afterwards again bowled. At 30-3, Oli Higgs and Samuel Wyatt-Haines begin to recover the situation before Higgs miss times a pull and is caught at square leg 58-4 and Devon are making heavy weather of it. Peter Taylor with instructions to support Wyatt-Haines does exactly that and with Wyatt-Haines playing some super cover drives they put on 50, with Wyatt-Haines reaching his 50 too. The reverse sweep almost got out the cupboard and then there was a misunderstanding and Wyatt-Haines is unfortunately run out. 108-5. Billy Barriball and Taylor push the score onto 124 when Barriball is LBW. Two runs latter Taylor gets impatient and is bowled charging Gwent’s spinner. Harry Choules follows almost immediately bowled. At 126-8 Devon are looking to score 150 if they are lucky with 175 looking about par. 

Theo Thomson and Jack Williams had other thoughts and Thomson led the way with some splendid powerful drives and pulls and as Williams' confidence grew he got more expansive just missing out on a six over long on. The score raced along and the pair put on 80 for the ninth wicket in less than 10 overs, giving Devon the welcome impetus and possibly taking the game away from Gwent. Devon 209-8 of their 45 overs. 

Ben Holmes opens and bowls with pace and moves the ball away and Gillam Crouch does the same bowling his new found in swing to great effect. However no real chances are made and the occasional ball is punished and with extras the score fairly quickly gets into the 30s. The introduction of slow left armer Theo Thomson and Alistair Chilcott slow the temp and Thomson is rewarded with his first County wicket. Gwent take the score onto 79 before Thomson takes a sharp caught and bowled and then Billy Barriball’s quicker ball bowls Jones 38. Another similar delivery takes another wicket and Gwent are 88-4. A slight recovery occurs before Billy Searle takes the first of his three wickets and Alistair Chilcott comes back at the other end to round things off and take another three wickets with Thomson taking two catches. Did anyone notice Ali was on a hat trick? Gwent all out 148 and Devon win by 61 runs. 

What a great start to the season and all five of the debutants made a contribution and in Theo’s (Mearsy’s) case a man of the match contribution. There are lots and lots of positives to take away but perhaps we need to be even more assertive in our running between the wickets, running harder like Theo and Jack did at the end, and if you look at the batters who scored the runs where did they score them? Bowling we still need to work on bowling straighter, making the batters play, bowling less wides 20, and reducing the extras 47! All staying focused for the full 45 overs was challenging in the heat but it could have been better as could some of the fielding. 


Scorecard                              





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