Buckley Cup

Belstone v Okehampton

BELSTONE extended their lead in the Buckley Cup T20 competition with back-to-back maximum point wins last week.

First Okehampton could only muster 81 all out – thanks mainly to Jack Barkwell (20), Ruben Forrester (16) and Vallance (17) – against a Belstone attack, where Harry Bushin and Andy King each took three wickets and Tom Boother ended the innings with two wickets in his first five balls.

Belstone knocked off the runs inside 12 overs without losing a wicket with Pat Ewen retiring on 26 and Ryan Dennis and Ben Davey being unbeaten on 17 and 25 respectively.

Buckley Cup

Belstone v Spreyton

THE next evening Spreyton were the visitors to Rew Meadow for a much closer game, which ultimately hinged on the number of wides bowled.

Belstone batted first and were indebted to Alex Jopling (27 retired) and Phil Woods (25 retired in his first appearance of the season) for most of their runs off the bat. However, it was the 35 wides conceded by Spreyton that really boosted the score to a useful 131 for seven after 20 overs, including two wides that also reached the boundary and another five penalty runs from a delivery that hit a helmet.

Spreyton were near the required rate throughout their reply thanks to 24 from Steve Wright, 25 not out from Jake Griffiths and 20 from Will House, while Dan Fogerty (4-0-24-3) and Ryan Dennis (4-2-4-2) were the most successful Belstone bowlers. With the final four overs to come Spreyton needed 37 runs to win and still had five wickets in hand but, even though Belstone gave them seven wides and thus seven extra balls in that period, they were unable to hit the boundaries needed – moreover in their desperation all five wickets were lost, the last three men all run out, to leave Belstone the winners by 15 runs.