Devon Cricket Board - Corns need to learn lessons in partnership batting

Corns need to learn lessons in partnership batting

CORNWOOD’S predicament at the foot of the table wasn’t improved by a 73-run defeat by upwardly mobile North Devon.
North Devon have won three of their last four starts to rise up the table to third.
Cornwood have not won since they turned over Sandford on the opening day of the season and are now 15 points adrift of safety at the bottom of the Premier table.
If Cornwood lose at Torquay this Saturady, another side closer to the bottom than the top, they really will be in the thick of a relegation battle.
North Devon totalled 236 all out in the last of their 50 overs.
Somerset’s Jamie Overton slammed 51 off 29 balls after coming in at 150 for five, to give North Devon some oomph in the last few overs.
A lot of the batting damage had already been done by then in stands constructed round Barney Huxtable’s 55 at the top of the order.
Max Curtis and Tom Allin put on 40 after Huxtable went to Matt Skeemer and before Overton started getting on with it.
Cornwood were all out for 162 in reply and their leading batter was Jackson Thompson, who had 45 of the first 61 on the board.
After Thompson went to Matt Westway to a catch on the boundary, Cornwood Overton hard to get away and didn’t get much change from Allin or Sam Witheridge either.
Skipper Jason Hall (27) and Elliot Staddon did put up 43 for the eighth wicket, but by then the game had gone.
Once Hall fell to Overton the Somerset paceman only needed a couple of balls to mop up the tail and finish with figures of five for 14.
Cornwood’s Matt Butterworth said there was a lesson to be taken on board from the way North Devon batted if the Oak Park club are going to survive this season.
“North Devon built partnerships – and we didn’t.” said Butterworth.
“It was pleasing to see Jackson Thompson get a score at last and start to look like the player who scored 800-odd league runs last season.
“He hit a Tom Allin length ball for six and that’s a sign he is getting back to form.
“You need more than one player though and until we start putting partnerships together we won’t score enough runs.
“The lesson to learn is wait for the bad ball to come along and not trying to crash every ball to the boundary.”

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