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Doctors beat Quantock Stags by 27 runs Doctors 127
for 6
Stags 100
for 5
After six weeks of
dry weather in March and early April it came as no surprise that the
season’s opening fixture was played in damp, dark conditions. Doctors
won the toss and suffered an early loss when Julian Graham steered an
innocuous delivery from Simon Foyle (1-22) to point for an unwanted duck on
his debut. Phil Barker and Jeremy Budd
made light of the setback with a stand of 55 at a brisk tempo. Both batsmen demonstrated a range of fluent
drives and pulls although Barker (31) was dropped twice off the unlucky Geoff
Shaw. He eventually succumbed to a
superb, diving legside catch by keeper Tony Fawle off the deserving Gordon
Elkins (2-21) and the same bowler immediately removed Budd (16) via a catch
at mid on by Steve Dickens. If
anything the fall of the two wickets led to an increase in the run rate as
Andrew Paisley and Alan Dunkley
brought their good form in the nets into the middle, hitting hard and running
like the wind. They had put on 43 when
James Coates took a hand. The Stags start
was of the worst imaginable variety as John Down clicked into gear at once
and took out Fawle’s leg stump with the first ball of the innings. Further strikes from Down (2-2) and Mike
Smart (1-23) had the visitors reeling at 18 for 3 and Steve Dickens and Shaw
had some rebuilding to do. They had
weathered the storm and were just accelerating in steady drizzle when Dickens
(12) was dismissed by a truly awful ball from Peter Reed (1-31), pulling a
wide legside full toss into the safe hands of Down at fine leg. Shaw and Elkins attacked whenever possible
in the gathering gloom but the required rate was never within reach and
eventually Shaw (34) took one chance too many off |
