Martin Swannell batted superbly at Whitchurch but was denied a deserved century when, on 99, he had his stumps knocked over!

Feniton struck one of the day’s biggest scores, declaring on 304-6 at Whitchurch.

There was pain though for Martin Swannell who, one run short of a richly deserved century, succumbed to a straight delivery from the spinner that knocked his stumps over on 99!

Swannell was well supported by Alex Frankpitt (56), Adrian Pullin (42) and Charlie Selley (32) in the impressive Feniton tally.

The hosts never looked like chasing down the total and looked intent on making the two thirds of the total to claim the losing draw points, something they did with just five wickets down.

Skipper Mark Kingdon took two of the wickets to fall and said, post match: “It’s disappointing that we lost the toss for, in those weather conditions I honestly felt that had I won the toss and asked them to bat we’d have been home before the Champions league final kicked off! Martin (Swannell) batted beautifully and we are in good shape with the bat through the side as the other contributions underline. What did hit us was that, when we were bowling the ball was a beauty, but once it was spanked into the undergrowth beyond the boundary a home search could not recover it and the ball we were then forced to use quickly became like a bar of soap and that’s very hard to retain any form of control with!”

On Saturday Feniton hosts high flying Ottery St Mary in an East Devon derby at Acland Park.