Sidmouth, who last year were crowned 2nd XI Premier Division champions, batted first and were kept below 200 by a good performance from the Whimple bowlers.

Seven bowlers were used and all but two claimed a wicket with Stephen Hathaway, who took the new ball, bagging a brace to finish with figures of 2-31 from nine overs. Matt Brown (1-31 from nine), Matt Richards (1-31 from eight), Cameron Kidd (1-12 from two) and Guy Harrison-Roberts (1-31 from three), were the other successful bowlers while the two without a wicket were Neil Maud (0-31 from five) and Devon Nightingale (0-20 from nine).

However, as impressive as the home bowling might have been, the Sidmouth turn with the ball had a devastating effect on the Whimple batsmen with just three of them getting into double figures! Cameron Kidd, batting at number four, top scored with 40 while number eight Steve Hathaway chipped in with 36 and last man Matt Richards was unbeaten on 10. None of the other batters managed more than the seven from the bat of Matt Brown and Whimple were bowled out for 139 in 38.2 overs.

Whimple skipper Ben Silk was upbeat post match. He said: “There really are so many more positives than negatives to take from this game. First up, we have just played a side who are arguably going to be one of the top sides in the division this year and we are not that far off them. Indeed, had we bowled with a little more discipline (Whimple sent down 30 wides), then I feel sure we’d have been an awful lot closer at stumps.”

He continued: “A big issue for us was that for our entire team, the game was out first live experience this season of a grass wicket. The game was in doubt until the verti draining we had done on the outfield on the Thursday before the match and we have all had no pre-season what so ever.

“I felt some of our bowling errors and certainly a lot of our batting failings were down to a total lack of grass wicket time. So I cannot be anything other than positive after this. It’s onwards and upwards for sure. I was also delighted to hear from the opposition about how impressed they were with the apparent depth of our batting. One things for sure, playing 2nd XIs of such quality is most certainly not going to detract from our enjoyment. We all took so much from the game and we enjoyed a post match beer with the visiting side too.”