Today's date is

Sunday 3rd June

Home v Bratton Fleming II NDL

A very strong Cheriton XI or should that be XIV assembled although Charles was resting his knee and only delivering cakes for tea! John Pitts was the 13th man, and having made it back from Cornwall just in time, found himself packed off back to the village - would we regret that decision? This left Andy to play 12th man/scorer/umpire! Oh, apologies to Brent! Make that a Cheriton XV - should we take up rugby? - I think not as it's a game played by men with strange shaped balls! Yes Brent was marshalling operations in his inimitable style and took to the field with his regular partner Steve with his counter in his hand and a flourish to his arm! Ted was stand in captain for the afternoon, which gave him the chance to impress his band of followers who had been camping at the ground overnight. Trouble was they hadn't made it to bed until well after the sun had come up and he wasn't feeling 100%! In all the melee the toss had taken place and presumably we won it as we batted first.
Peter very quickly found himself spectating after the BFII opening bowler bowled him with a full length ball - something he would do on at least two more occasions during his excellent 9 over spell. In fact there wasn't a weak spot at all in Bratton's bowling attack, and it was mainly down to Mike ,who recorded another half century, that we managed to get a half decent score. Dave Carr played watchfully and stuck around for quite a while, as did Ben and Phil, but it wasn't until Jeremy, never known to hang around when batting, and Nick came to the crease that the scoring really picked up. Nick has a wonderful cavalier attitude to batting and no respect for any bowler. He also plays with a smile on his face (mostly) which is good to watch.
Steve gave his usual dogged support to Nick in the final stages and Robbie came in for the last ball of the innings and duely despatched it to the boundary for 4!
215 for 8 was a reasonable score in the face of such good bowling, but the general feeling was that it would be touch and go as to whether it was enough.

Tea was muted as the Cheriton players seemed slightly daunted by the task ahead. Perhaps we would all have enjoyed the excellent spread courtesy of Carl and Sarah had we known just how well Ben was about to perform.
Opening from the New Pavilion End, he bowled the best spell of his Cheriton career, taking 4 wickets in a devastating display of pace bowling. Even the Bratton captain and possibly their best bat, said to Steve behind the stumps that he was virtually unplayeble and would just see him out - not an easy task as the ball beat his bat on numerous occasions. He did manage it though, and then as quite often happens, he let his guard down and after smearing Robbie for 6, then played a horrible shot and lost his leg stump to yet another Robbie wicket. The confidence Bens bowling gave the team was priceless and lifted the fielding to an excellent level with catches being taken safely and run outs actually hitting the stumps! To bowl Bratton out for 84 was a surprise to the Cheriton as much as a dissapointment for them.
The return match is next weekend where things may be different, with Cheriton missing a handful of top performers and Bratton Fleming not having a 1st XI fixture! PC

Tuesday 5th June

Home v Met Office EEL

Wednesday 6th June

The ground improvements are continuing apace. Here are some recent views for those of you who haven't seen it yet!

The turf is removed - March	The base is set in place.
Hardcore is added in May.	The main framework starts to go up - June.
The front view in early June.	It's looking good!
The interior taken from what will be one of the changing rooms.
A 360° shot of the pitch showing old and new pavilions.

Thursday 7th June

Home v Yeoford

In the absence of Colin and Ben, Mike accepted the offer from Colin to Captain and preserve the midweek friendly eleven's' 100% record, which he dutifully achieved.

Yeoford were not at full strength, due to silage making, but managed to bring 9 players along to allow an enjoyable match. Cheriton batted first and thanks to Roy and Greg for taking the field with the Yeoford players.

Charles Mossman opened the batting and told me after the match, this was his first knock for 30 years. Well didn't he do well, batting more confidently every over and having to be retired in the 18th .After we lost Andy, Jeremy carried on his recent form and scored a brisk 54, to allow us to post a reasonable total of 148.

The Yeoford batsmen never really threatened the Cheriton early bowling, with Mike being over cautious to fullfill his promise to Colin and to allow himself a couple of overs at the death.

Yeoford promise to be at full stength for the return in july! Though they may be making hay? MF

Sunday 10th June

Away v Bratton Fleming II NDL

The team that set out for Bratton Fleming was not quite the same as the one that took the field last Sunday. With a bowling attack consisting of Coe, Carr D., Mogridge and Keight we would need one of the occaional bowlers to stand up and be counted. Same could be said of the batting.
Charles lost the toss (when doen't he these days) and we were asked to bat. Mike was joined by Ben for the first time and both looked to be doing well. The score progressed gently and they were just looking set to break the shackles when Ben was dismissed. Charles S, David C and Anthony flattered the bowlers and it was not until Charles Mossman joined Mike at the crease that things looked stable again. Mike went a ball later than he should have done (Brent on the LBW, why doesn't he ever give me not out....) and Charles M set about holding the tail together to see out the whole 45 overs. He did a great job, taking most of the strike and playing some great cuts but it was hard work. In the end we could only manage 43 overs, Dick, Brent and Culter Jr. going cheaply to leave Charles M not out for the second game running.

Tea was taken with the knolwedge that 168 was not really enough. We would need to get amongst them early on to have any chance of pulling off a shock. Unfortunately the early chances that Ben and Robbie did manage to extract did not result in wickets. Robbie went through his 9 overs without a wicket. It is a very long time since we have seen that happen and the writing was on the wall.
Runs came more quickly against the change bowlers and although the were a couple of wickets, one for DC and one (very well deserved) for Cutler Jr. it was not enough. With Jim having bowled his 4 overs and the others bowled out the Captain had little choice but to bowl himself from the Pavillion end. With only six needed to win everyone thought that would be it, but Charles improved his average by only going for 4 and it was from Anthony's next over that the winning runs were taken.
Could we have won, well perhaps and we certainly should have betted with a little more application (Charles M and Mike being the exceptions), but all things considered we did well with the team that was available. CS

Tuesday 12th June

Away v Dawlish & Teignmouth

Sadly we couldn't raise a team for this game!

Wednesday 13th June

Away v Ide

Wasn't it a lovely day, the day we went to Ide!
The ide skipper phoned me at 4pm to advise that the pitch would be wet and I decided, with a dry evening forecast, that we would give it a go. Sorry lads!
 
Well, we all arrived there and the pitch looked better than usual, but what demons would we find beneath the surface?
 
Colin lost the toss and we were sent in to bat. Mike out for a 3rd ball duck, then a partnership of 6, between Dave Lacy and Robbie, but the innings soon became a farce! Dave and Robbie caught off rising balls, Chairman run out, then Dave Carr made sure he was not in Hospital for the Lynton match and called Roy for a sharp single. Phil was holding up the inevitable, but was in great pain with his tennis elbow and had to retire. The batting then collapsed with 4 players clean bowled for 0, leaving Cutler junior stranded at the other end. All out for 21.
 
Ide reversed their batting order, but although Will and Dave bowled 8 overs for 11 runs, we lost by 10 wickets.
 
At least we got to the Hunsman early for Beer and a bar-b-que. MF

Thursday 14th June

Home v Crediton Inn

Sunday 17th June

Away v Lynton & Lynmouth II NDL


Charles lost the toss again, but again the opposition asked us to do what we would have opted to do anyway. Things started a little slowly as we had only 9 players (Ted and Robbies having stopped for an ice-cream on the way). The Carr brothers took the openning overs and did well, bowling a tight line and keeping the score down. When the did turn up the holiday-makers took their turn and also did a good job. Jeremy also showed that he is a more than useful bowler and a with everyone taking a wicket and a run out we had opened up what should ahve been the tail. Unfortunately if wasn't, it was the First XI that came out and smacked 130 in the last 15 overs, 70 of them off the last 5. DC suffered particularly badly and will remember his last couple of overs for a long time....

Mike was showing us the way in the field until he stepped on the ball and turned is ankle over. We did feel it was a little unsporting of the L&L batsmen to run two while we attended to him, but First XI players will be First XI players... 269 in 45 overs was a good total, but by no means impossible to chase down on this high scoring pitch.

Tea was taken under darkening skys, and when we opened it was with 3 batsmen as Mike required a runner. In many ways this counted in our favour as Charles was able to take some runs that Mike would have truned down. The skys darkend and the rain came and play was suspended for 15 minutes. There followed a discussion as to who had the decision (Umpires or Captains) and what exatly constituted rain. With no prospect of completing 45 overs Charles was reluctant to resume in the rain, but eventually the rain subsided to a drizzle and the light got marginally better so we had another go. Unfortunately the rain came back harder than before and with 17 overs bowled we called a halt.

Another game lost to the rain, and with the news that Cully have pulled out of the division we don't have many games left to secure our place in Div 4. CS.