Sidbury travelled to Honiton on Sunday for a friendly that turned out to be a thriller, writes Simon Rowe.

Honiton won the toss and choose to bat first in near perfect batting conditions, great wicket, fast outfield and clear blue sky.

The game was scheduled for 30 overs, but five overs in, it didn’t look like it would last, with Martin Millmow and Jackson Chinery bowling very tidily and Jackson picking up three early wickets, with very little on the board at this stage.

However, a couple Honitons senior batsman eventually started to get established and made the best of the conditions putting on a big partnership and helping their team to very healthy total of 197.

Although the run rate did increase the Sidbury boys didn’t give up and bowled and fielded with lots of heart, desperately unlucky not to break the partnership on several occasions.

When Sidbury batted they got off to a flyer with Olly Pagent hitting the ball sweetly and regularly finding the boundary.

A couple of wickets fell, when Simon Rowe joined Olly and the pair went on to add over hundred runs and had put Sidbury in a very good position. Both eventually fell to Honiton’s first team spinner, but all was not lost, good contributions from Jackson Chinery, Mark Williams and Mark Pearce meant the game was never out of sight. Sidbury, still with four wickets in tact, sadly just ran out of balls and ended up just 10 runs short.