Devon Dumplings v UCSOBs

UCSOBs v Devon Dumplings

Instow Tuesday 25th August 2020 at 1:00pm. 

UCSOBs delayed their July tour but the weather was very not August. Even for Instow it was abnormal as the players battled against 50-60mph winds . You could hardly walk around the outside of the Pavilion and of course players were having to change al fresco. One of the umpires was leaning forward at a 30 degree angle! The N Devon groundsman had made a huge effort, especially after all the rain.

UCSOBs took to the field with a team of 12, with one player rotating but they were still able to provide a guest player to bring the Dumpling’s team to 11, which was as well following a couple of late cryoffs. The game was limited to 35 overs.

 UCSOBs won the toss and put the Dumplings in. Last year’s top scorer, Ben Abrahams, was out second ball of the innings for 0 but then youngsters Sam Read and Ollie Allsop put on a useful partnership of 64 before Read was out for 35 in the 12th over. Allsop was joined by Harry Everett who pushed the score to 71 before wickets started to tumble at regular intervals, with Sami Ullah taking a wicket in each of his first 3 overs. Allsop was the 5th wicket to fall with the total on 74 and no one else made double figures. The only resistance was shown by our UCSOB guest Harry Di-Lieto who hung around till the end of our innings when he was last man out for 8 with the total a meagre 93. A starry batting lineup had been covered in stormclouds!

The Dumplings needed to take wickets to have any hope of defending so small a total but they struggled to do so, even trying Di-Lieto (his brother said he had never seen him bowl before) The senior spinners Tidball R (6-1-14-0) and Berman P (5-1-9-0) pegged them back for a while but 93 was never really a defensible total. Read made the only break through when he trapped opener Jitendra Maurya LBW but by then UCSOBs had scored 71 off 22 overs. It only took a further 4 overs for UCSOBs to reach 94 . Dumplings had been blown away in every sense.

Devon Dumplings 93. Read 35, Allsop 27; Ullay 4-16, Goldsmith 3-9. 

UCSOBs 94 for 1. Grabinar 41*. 

UCSOB won by 9 wickets