Devon Cricket Board - Bradninch skipper answers Lewdown question

Bradninch skipper answers Lewdown question

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BRADNINCH won for the first time this season in the A Division when they came home 47-run victors from Lewdown.
Bradninch were all out for 206 in the 47th of their 50 overs – helped no end by the 48 wides Lewdown chucked their way in a grand total of 61 extras.
Best off the bat was Gian Botha with 58 – he and Ross Acton (28) put on 75 for the fourth wicket – with Jack Horton making 20.
Lewdown’s bowling figures for Marco Marais (2-34) and Tallen Burns (2-37) would have looked better without the wides.
Gary Sizmur was the only Lewdown bowler not to stray off the straight and narrow.
Lewdown stuttered from the start with Marais (62) the only batter making much headway in a running total of 85 for five when he got out to Will Squire (3-40).
Acton (4-35) had already helped himself to three wickets and what he started was fnished off by Paul Nott (3-35) and Squire.
Matt Witcher’s 24 was as good as it got once Marais departed.
Bradninch skipper Tim Piper questioned before the game whether Lewdown were a one-man team based around Marais?
Having seen Lewdown close up Piper didn’t mince his words.
Said Piper: “To answer the question of are they a one-man team, not quite, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who labelled them that.
“They had an opening bat who looked like he could get runs and obviously Marais.
"After that, the young Devon lad Horn who batted number 11 handled our bowlers the best.
"He also bowled some decent overs of spin in the first innings, so credit to him.
“Marais batted as if he knew they had no depth. As soon as we got three wickets, he was obviously trying to accelerate, presumably knowing he had to do the bulk of the work from there before the rest got out!”
On Bradninch’s own performance, Piper said” “We played some good cricket in patches, but nowhere near our best.
“We dropped off, as we sometimes did last year, after we got Marais, thinking we could cruise to the finish.
“We had a chat at drinks and soon put that right though.
“I was again very happy with our fielding and bowling performance.
"We've been doing a lot of fielding on training days and it's nice to see it pay off.”
Lewdown skipper Geering said he won’t be dwelling on the result.
“Not much went right,” said Geering. “We dropped catches – including Botha - were slow in the field and gave away an abysmal number of extras.
“None of that was helped by Charlie Hughes (injured) and Phill Yeo (unavailable) not there to give us that much needed experience with the ball.
“We never really got going with the bat against Acton and four of the top five only getting 11 between us!”
Geering said the bright points were wickets for teenage debutants Leon Horn and Burns, both youth set-up graduates.
He added: “ A bad day at the office but if we don't perform extremely badly again there are a lot of beatable teams in the division.”

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