Sidmouth suffered a surprise defeat when they succumbed to a 51-run loss at the hands of visiting Heathcoat.

The Mid Devon men batted first and, on another true Fortfield strip, made all the better for batting by some glorious sunshine, were able to rack up an impressive total of 305 before they lost their final wicket with eight balls of their 50 overs remaining.

One statistic that does make for interesting reading is that only four of the visiting batsmen reached double figures!

Heathcoat made the perfect start, seeing the Fortfield score board have three figures on it before the first wicket fell with Kyle Brockley taking a catch off the bowling of Charlie Miles.

One wicket down quickly became two as former Sidmouth keeper/batsman Pete Randerson was caught by Zach Bess off Will Murray.

However, Heathcoat’s South African opener Bradley Barnes was batting imperiously at the other end and, despite wickets falling in a regular basis, was able to power his way to a 144 before he was the fifth wicket down. The last five Heathcoat wickets could muster just 33 and so Sidmouth trooped off knowing they’d need to bat well post tea to claim another victory.

Josh Bess took the bowling honours with figures of 4-48 and Will Murray proved to be the most economical – his 10 overs only went for 28 runs!

Sidmouth were 37 runs into the chase when Matt Cooke was removed and four more wickets fell with just 110 on the board! The fifth wicket to fall was opener Liam Lewis with 44 to his name.

Zach Bess offered up the most resistance with a 44-ball 62, but Sidmouth were always behind the run rate and losing wickets and so they stumbled to defeat, with Kyle Brockley the final man out with the reply on 254.

On Saturday Sidmouth head for Plymouth to take on a side with an identical won-two-lost-two record this season to date.