A fine all-round display with ball and bat saw Sidmouth II to a nine wicket Fortfield triumph over Chudleigh II.

It was not all positive though as the bowlers did manage to send down no fewer than 31 wide’s inside the first five overs!

Nick Mansfield overcame his early wide woes to bowl a good six over spell, removing one of the openers.

Fionn Wardrop bowled a steady nine over shift for very respectable figures of 1-23.

Wardrop was replaced by opener Alistair Bartlett who relocated his line and length and kept the pressure on the visiting batsmen.

Patidar and a fiery Gingell came together to bowl the last eight overs and picked up three wickets each for very few runs as Chudleigh were bowled out for 157 which looked well below par on what seemed a very god Fortfield wicket.

After the early loss of Patidar, Dan Powell and Matt Hewer showed how low the target was in adding 146 runs to take Sidmouth to victory with 16 overs to spare. Powell, in particular, looked impressive as he batted steadily to reach 40 then accelerated, scoring his next 40 runs from just 13 balls with a pleasing array of correct and handsome shots.

Combined with another very good wicket-keeping display, Powell’s effort earned him an almost unanimous vote for the Jazzy award for Man of the match.

The wide’s aside, the only other disappointing note in this comfortable victory was a good home crowd having to watch Sidmouth play at The Fortfield on a league Saturday with only ten men!

Tomorrow (Saturday) the team travel to fourth placed Paignton as the second half of the season gets undeway.

The lead at the top of the Premier table is three points from Exeter II who travel to third bottom Bovey Tracey.