Berkshire men started their 3 day campaign by hosting Devon CC at Wargrave. After a brilliant summer so far the first rains had arrived on the Saturday before the game and due to that the start to the game was delayed.
Eventually with some excellent work from Martin Woods and his team at Wargrave CC the game started just after lunch on day 1. Dan Lincoln had won the toss and asked Devon to bat first. It looked a great decision as Charlie Dunnett struck with his first delivery of the day clean bowling the Devon captain. Both Rishton and Dunnett continued to trouble the batters but no further in roads were made and Devon progressed incredibly slowly to 172 before the returning Josh Lincoln turned the day the way of b\erkshire with a great spell of fast bowling removing both set batters. Devon had dug themselves into a hole and finished the first day 211 for 4 in 75 overs. With clear skies overhead on the start of the second day, Berkshire continued to take wickets as Devon tried to accelerate and Berkshire restricted them to 270 for 9 in their allotted 90 overs. Brilliant bowling from Josh Lincoln with his first championship 5 wicket haul and he finished with figures of 5 for 52 in 17 overs. Now it was Berkshire’s opportunity to bat and they started brilliantly with debutant Greg Smith and Rhys Lewis sharing a 50 run opening stand before Greg was out with the score on 76. Charlie Dunnett then joined Rhys and together they put on 99 runs before Rhys was out for an excellent 86 in 134 balls. As Berkshire tried to accelerate the scoring so a few more wickets fell and at tea time they had reached 243 for 6 in 65 overs. Unfortunately that was the end of the cricket for the day as a huge thunderstorm hit Wargrave CC. With more time now lost it felt like an impossible job to try and force a result but the boys tried their best to get a decent 2nd innings lead at the beginning of day 3 to put some pressure on Devon. Berkshire were bowled out for 317 in the 88 th over. Charlie Dunnett and Andrew Macewen making 62 and 42 respectively.. Devon now faced a 47 run deficit when they started their innings and from the outset it was easy to see that they were playing for a draw. Dan Lincoln swapped his bowlers around regularly to try and get the breakthroughs needed but alas at 17:15 the two captains shook hands as Devon had reached 221 for 3 in 61 0vers. So a draw in the first game and 11 points went to Berkshire vs the 10 points Devon received.
BERkSHIRE V DEVON SCORECARD – CLICK HERE
Cornwall Preview
The boys travel down to Truro Saturday night to take on Cornwall. It is great to have Toby Greatwood back in the team who injured his shoulder earlier in the season. Jack Laraman from Datchet CC had been added to the squad and could make his National counties debut if selected on Sunday. It will no doubt be another tough encounter against an excellent Cornish team but we are hoping the weather holds and we get 3 full days of cricket.
