Whimple banked a full-house of 22 points with a big victory over Yarcombe and Stockland to move to within one point of second in the E Division Whitchurch.

When the 30th over was completed Whimple, batting first, had 170 runs on the board. Then came the fireworks as Chris Palfrey marked his return to the club after a spell with Feniton and he launched himself into the bowling plundering nine 6s in a 28-ball knock of 72 as he and his father Steve (42no) put on 93 for the fourth wicket taking Whimple to a declaration at 301-4.

Steve Hathaway (3-31), Matt Richards (3-32) and Paul Gillard (3-32) then combined to bowl Yarcombe out for 153 leaving Whimple winners by a whopping margin of 148 runs.

Skipper Ben Silk said: “We spoke before the game about looking to get a declaration. The trouble was we were not sure what a winning score was. However, once the Palfrey’s got stuck in and got us to 300 it made sense to call the batters in and see if we could then knock them (Yarcombe) over to bag the full house of bowling points.”

The win keeps Whimple in the promotion race and Silk sees the next few games as a real opportunity for his side.

He says: “We host Kenn then travel to Upottery before the Whitchurch game at the end of the month, July is the key month for us I feel and if we can win the next three then we’ll be sitting pretty for then run-in. That said we are taking nothing for granted. As we saw last week with Topsham St James beating Babbacombe, bottom can beat top in this section. Kenn will be a challenge, but if want to get back up then we’ll need to win the majority of our remaining eight games.”