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Buckinghamshire v Devon Ascott Park 15th/16th July 2002 Buckinghamshire entertained the Devon under 17s at the majestic Ascott Park ground on the Rothschild Estate, a attractive traditional Country House ground. On the first day in temperatures, that the players had last experienced in the Kruger Park, Bucks won the toss and batted and Devon were confronted with a long hard day in the field. However Devon responded with a magnificent fielding and bowling performance and stuck to their task with an excellent end product. The omens were not good with a ten ball first over from Craig Miles but in partnership with Chris Jenn the opening bowlers restricted the openers to twenty-two runs off their first twelve overs. Adam Parker and Leon Loveridge then entered the fray and in the ninetieth over Parker trapped Price in front. Buckinghamshire the progressed to 50 after twenty-nine overs and then the Devon captain Nick Watkin had Smith caught behind by Marc Bettiss. The third wicket pairing took the score to seven runs short of the hundred and then thirty-two minutes into the afternoon session Jenn and Bettiss combined to run out the dangerous Viney who had started the second session in a very confident manner. Watkins and Bolton continued to offer resistance but Devon kept taking wickets at vital stages with Micheal Wigley taking two in two just before tea leaving the home side at 173-6. All of the bowlers were putting in good spells and Parker picked up three important wickets. Opening bowler Craig Miles came back to take the last two wickets as Bucks were bowled out in 91 overs for 202. This left the Devon openers Wigley and Tom Bowring with eleven overs to survive and this was nearly achieved as Bowring was caught behind on the penultimate ball leaving devon 25-1 overnight. The weather forecast and news from Devon indicated heavy thunder storms so the game plan was to get past the first target as early as possible. Wigley and Watkin took the score to 46 but it was a critical third wicket partnership of 116 that looked like achieving the team objective. The Torrington pairing of Wigley (55) and Bettiss (66) put on 116 off 110 balls and Devon were well placed at lunch on 161 after 47 overs. However the clouds were gathering and ten minutes into the luncheon adjournment it started to rain! This delayed the start but fortunately the clouds moved on but much of the good work was undone as Wigley and Bettiss were dismissed within five balls of each other leaving Devon 166-4. Adam Parker was scoring at the right tempo and with Jack Horton took the score passed the target before Parker was caught driving on the up for an excellent 30 ball 35. |
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