Hancock takes a pasting

DEVON captain Neil Hancock is almost certain to miss the rest of the season after suffering a badly broken nose playing for club side Sidmouth against Exmouth.

Hancock had just hit county colleague and Exmouth fast bowler Trevor Anning for two fours so it wasn’t surprising that he was treated to a bouncer.

Hancock’s nose was badly broken and a check over in hospital in Exeter on Saturday night revealed the worst.

“Neil has an open fracture in inside his nose and it will need an operation to set it,” said Sidmouth skipper Will Murray.

“He can’t have the operation until the swelling goes down, which the doctors reckon will be by the end of the week.

“I can’t see Neil playing again this season, but that isn’t really important .What is important is that he gets better soon.”

Hancock hadn’t been wearing a helmet, which Murray said wasn’t the best decision the Devon captain had ever made.

“Trevor is quite quick, the light wasn’t great and in situations like that if you have a helmet in your kit back you may as well put it on,” said Murray

“Nick Gingell was out there at the other end as Hanks didn’t have a helmet on neither did he. During the break in play, Ginge went back in the dressing room and got his.”

Hancock’s injury wasn’t the only talking point after thegame: so was the umpires’ decision to abandon the game with Sidmouth poised for victory.

Exmouth had made 195 for eight in 46.1 rain-affected overs with skipper Richard Baggs (58) and David Lye (36) dodging Josh Bess (4-53) long enough to make a few runs.

Thanks to Anthony Griffiths (58), Bess (39), Hancock (22) and Gingell (30no), Sidmouth needed 19 to win off 12 overs with five wickets in tact when umpires Pete Bamber and Steve Lavis decided the light was too poor to continue.

“I would never criticise an umpire, especially when the safety of the players is at stake and given what had happened earlier,” said Murray.

“All I would say is the light was no worse when we stopped than it had been half an hour earlier, so we might as well have stopped then.

“You can’t be sure we would have won, but we were in a very strong position.”

Opposite number Baggs was far more succinct. He said: “We got away with it.”


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