The club’s hold on the Devon T20 Cup is as strong as ever after a Monday night ‘power-how’ to brush aside the challenge of hosts Barton.
Yes, having beaten Budleigh Salterton in Round One, Gary Chappell and his men, who won the Devon T20 Cup in such grand style last year, have now brushed Barton aside to take their place at Devon Finals Day next month.
At Barton, where the home side won the toss and opted to bat first, it was a double wicket burst in over number two sent down by Ross Acton that left the South Devon-based men 3-2! Acton first knocked over the stumps of Adrian Lipton and that saw Will Squire hold a catch to remove Adam Last.
Siddesh Veer and Steve Lewis then began innings repair work, but, with the score on 43, Acton struck again, clean bowling Lewis for a 19-ball 21.
Matt Lipton joined Veer and the pair doubled the home score, taking the total to 89 when Chappell trapped Veer leg before and the home batsman trudged back having scored a 39-ball 37.
Lipton fell next, caught Mitchell Pugh off the bowling off Josh Farley. Lipton was out for a 22-ball 31 and Barton, with four overs remaining, were 99-5.
Six runs were added when a Ross Acton throw ran out Moragn Harford to leave Barton 105-6b and a seventh wicket fell with Chad Classen clean bowling Stuart Bowker in the penultimate over as Barton limped to a total of 113-7 in their 20 overs.
Ross Acton was the star of another fine collective bowling effort with the left armer returning impressive figures of 3-15. All five of the bowlers used sent down a full compliment of four overs with the other returns being; Josh Farley, who bowled the only maiden of the innings, (1-18), Gary Chappell (1-23), Chad Classen (1-26) and Mitch Pugh (0-31).
The Bradninch run chase was launched by Gary Chappell and Tim Piper and the opening over ended up being nine deliveries long at the end of which the score was 14-0.
Over two, sent down by Siddesh Veer, went for just a single, but over three, a second from Callum Crocker, yielded 13 runs and so, after three overs, Ninch were 28 without loss.
Veer sent the fourth down over as a maiden and a change of bowling saw Morgan Harford into the attack, but Tim Piper took a fancy to him, hitting him for a six, another six and then a four before ‘Pipes’ was caught by Veer to give Harford a wicket and leave Ninch 52-1 after five overs and ‘well on the way’!
Mitchell Pugh joined the skipper and overs six, seven and eight each yielded five runs. Over nine saw Pugh rifle back-to-back fours and, at the half way stage of the run chase, Ninch were 88-1 needing 26 runs to win from 60 balls.
A dozen runs were scored in each of over 11 and over 12 and, after seven runs came in the 13th over, Pugh despatched the first ball of the 14th over to the boundary to seal an emphatic success.
Pugh ended unbeaten on 42 from just 31 deliveries while Chappell was not out 34 from 39 deliveries.
Bradninch team at Barton: Gary Chappell (Capt), Darren Paul (w/k), Tim Piper, Mitchell Pugh, Ross Acton, Joshua Farley, Will Squire, Chad Classen, Eliot Acton, Ankit Badwal and Liam Reed.