Sidbury will tomorrow (Saturday) host the Tolchards Devon League Tier Eight final, taking on Bridestowe II after a 17-run win over Buckland Monachorum 1st XI in last Saturday’s semi-final.

Sidbury skipper Alex Paget won the toss and sent openers Ben Pollard and Ed Chester, but the latter was dismissed by a catch having scored one with the total on three!

That brought Mark Bishop to the crease and he and Pollard took the home side to 47 before Pollard had his stumps knocked over with his score on 16.

Will Bidder, a centurion the week before, took over, and he and Bishop took the score to 93 before Bishop became the third man down having scored 41.

A couple more wickets fell, including that of skipper Paget for 20 to leave his side 138-5.

Bidder then paired up first with Simon Rowe (7) and then Barney Stone (30) and, when both men had come and gone, with Bidder still at the wicket unbeaten on 49, Sidbury were on 197-7. Bidder duly reached his half century before the end of the 35 overs at which point Sidbury closed on 216-8. Bidder finished unbeaten on 55.

When Buckland Monachorum batted, leg before wicket decisions for Barney Stone and Damien Armes reduced them to 30-2.

They recovered and, when skipper Alex Paget claimed the third visiting wicket, the score was 94-3.

Success for Simon Rowe left the reply on 100-4, but they then settled and got to 146 before a Mark Bishop catch off Chris Fitzhenry, reduced Buckland Monachorum to 146-5.

There was then a flurry of wickets, leaving the reply on 165-9 with Fitzhenry claiming three more and Dave O’Connor also claiming a wicket.

With their last pair at the wicket, the away side still needed 52 to win with just 28 balls of the contest remaining.

The batsmen did ‘give it a go’ and, to their credit, kept their wickets intact, closing their reply on 199-9.

However, there was no denying Sidbury as worthy winners with that cup final to look forward to on their Millfield ground.

Chris Fitzhenry took the bowling honours with figures of 4-38 from six overs while all the other five bowlers called into action each claimed a single wicket.