B DIVISION BRIEFING – WEEK TEN
CULLOMPTON (3RD) v CHUDLEIGH (10TH)
Cullompton (Brendon Parr): Lee Hooper returns for his first game of the season to bat up top. We welcome England PD international Dan Reynaldo for his first league game. I'm really excited to have Dan on board! He has moved into the area and will bring us further skill and experience to the squad. Big second half coming up! We will be looking to hunt down Barton! Lots of changes this week due to various reasons.
Chudleigh (Matt Heather): What's the target for second half? Win a game of cricket!
TEIGNMOUTH and SHALDON (8TH) v IPPLEPEN (7TH)
Teignmouth (Carl Woolnough): Todd Ballman takes the gloves back and will open the batting after a couple of weeks off. Buhle Mabaso is back in after his four wickets against CSG a few weeks back. There is no Jawad Shirzad, but we welcome Morgan Couch into the team with his spin now he's finished at King’s College. We will be looking to win more than we lose in the second half of the season and stay in the division. The lads’ attitudes have been fantastic – and we learn every week!
Ipplepen (Matt Beasant): One change this week: Ross Kennard out due to work commitments, Toby Holroyd is available after his DofE exploits, so looking forward to seeing him slot back in. He will also take the gloves to enable Reuben Stanley to bowl. Happy to draw a line under the first half. I would back us to beat anyone on our day; we just need to make it our day more often! Hoping the rub of the green with some decisions will even out be over the second half of the season as well.
BUDLEIGH SALTERTON (6TH) v BIDEFORD (4TH)
Budleigh Salterton (Lloyd Murrin): Looking for a lot more consistency going into the second half. We've had some good performance, but struggled to string a run together. Dan Messom comes in as keeper-batter and Steve Booth to open-up after some runs in the 2nd XI last week.
Bideford (Tom Brend): We're in a good place at half way. The simple plan is to continue to play good cricket and with that keep winning games. It will be hard to chase the leaders as there are some very strong sides in the B who will win a lot more than they lose in the second half. However, with our current crop there's no reason we can't challenge them if we continue our good run of form. Team still to be confirmed. A couple of changes as per the usual with us, but most will remain the same.
BARTON (TOP) v CLYST ST GEORGE (9TH)
Barton (Steve Lewis): Adam Parker and Stuart Bowker unavailable. In come Cole Harford and Tom Drake. Second half is about maintaining momentum. We are in a very positive space on and off the pitch. We know everyone will be coming to beat us as front runners, but we just aim to keep on improving and playing our game. Not many people like Barton's success it feels so we just stay in our bubble and try to negate things thrown at us on and off the pitch.
Clyst St George (Dan Kendall): A few out this week but amongst the ins is Katie Donovan, fresh from her brilliant ‘7-fer’ for Devon Women last Sunday. Our target is an obvious one: to stay in this division. Hopefully availability will be better soon and that'll give us the best chance of picking up the wins we need. The mood in the camp remains positive and everyone's pulling together to make that happen for us.
STOKE GABRIEL (2ND) v BOVEY TRACEY II (5TH)
Stoke Gabriel (Jake Robinson): I think we'd be silly to say we don't want to finish at least where we're sitting. Well aware of how tough it is going to be though, we haven't really had an easy game yet and have done well to only lose twice. We'll have some obvious big games against those around us in the table but every game is going to be important from now as we can't afford to slip-up. A positive I'd say is that it hasn't all really clicked yet. Hopefully, the batting department can start firing a bit better. It will be good to see what we can do if that happens? No Mike Smith or Isaac Withington this week.
Bovey Tracey (Dan Green): Team undecided. Arren de young is still out this week due to injury. Braydon Pink is back. I may be playing in the first team. Targets for remainder of the season are a top-four finish and to progress as a team. We need to sort our batting out as we have not batted 45 overs this season yet. Continue to do what we do with ball and I believe we should be fine looking forward to second half of season.
