Thanks to Alex Paget for bits of alternative perspective (though sorry has been heavily Everett edited) from the ground of Westleigh in North Devon as Sidbury braved half-term holiday traffic successfully.
Up to Instow, or thereabouts, we'd come, and found a little ground on a big slope, above a church. Cypresses lined the horizon above, whilst the Taw & Torridge estuary was laid out for us below. A constant Northerly zephyr took the heat out of a cloudless day and we were playing cricket!
Damien Armes (pictured) had made a weekend of it and was fuller of beans than the rest, emerging from their cans after the slog up the link road. Sidbury inserted the opposition and, though Toby Whitfield removed one opener and he and Alex Paget kept the opening skirmishes tidy, it was only when Armes (5 for 18) got the ball that it looked like Sidbury would be chasing a smaller-than-average total.
42-1 was 83-7 by the time he'd bowled his eight, straight off, a first league 5-fer easily good enough to be named Clinch Plumbing and Heating man of the match. Elsewhere, quite in a world of his own, and almost out of sight at the bottom of the even-steeper hill at the bottom of the steep hill, Soren Hall was winning his own battle against a football presentation hangover.
Excused from bowling, he could only occasionally be heard moaning or seen, unaccountably, roly-polying in the deep. What else of the North Devon innings? A solitary bye for Astley-Jones, a tidy spell from Simon Rowe. Oh, and Arran De Moubray fielding "like a God", in the words of dear Ali.
After no-tea, North Devon unleashed unexpectedly quick bowlers on Sidbury's openers. Ed Chester and Mark Bishop dived and ducked, mis-cued and cued, got donked on the helmet and crushed on the gloves. They survived, however, very nearly to the end of the opening salvo and set a decent enough pace.
But it was only after Chester was bowled that the real thrill started. Josh Reed, having only just broken a 72-hour fast, strode out all full of steak and eggs to tuck into anything and everything thrown down his end. He was only there for thirteen balls but what we didn't see we wouldn't want to.
The quickest opening bowler was still on and Reed (23) knifed his first ball through the covers before smiting the last of the spell wide of mid-on for four as if to say, that's-the-end-of-you-so-you-can't-bowl-me-a-bouncer-by-way-of-repost-and-I'd-probably-hit-it-for-six-anyway-and-we're-going-to-go-on-and-win-the-match. Body language is easy like that.
He then hit a monstrous six over long-off as if to say something else before gallantly giving up his wicket. Bishop (28) did the same but by then the conclusion was forgone, Paget and De Moubray mundanely taking the game to its end before we all went for a pint by the water.
This week, Sidbury are at home three times. Ottery Rising Super Beavers visit on Wednesday, old friends Not The MCC on Friday and Alphington & Countess Wear IIs in the league on Saturday.
