Ashburton first team, unbeaten in their first two C West games, entertained Teignmouth & Shaldon, another side who had won their first two games.
Skipper Steve Edmonds won the toss for the the third time in a row and elected to have a bat. George Yabsley (9), Lloyd White (19) and Aditya More (17) all made starts before being dismissed to leave Ashes 68 for 3 in the 16th over. Ashley Berry was then joined by Dan Coles and the pair rebuilt the innings with a sensible partnership of 69 before Coles was dismissed for a well made 37. This prompted a mini collapse as Ashes slumped to 161 for 7. Berry was still there though and in conjunction with Ryan May the pair added a further 58 runs in the final 6 overs as Ashes finished on 219 for 7 in their 45 over allocation. Berry reached a well deserved 50 off the final ball of the innings and May finished unbeaten on a rapid 33 made from just 19 balls.
Ruben Minaar (29) and Seamus McKenna (15) gave Shaldon a rapid start adding 47 for the opening wicket before Edmonds (2 for 25) dismissed both in quick succession. Aditya More (2 for 27) also bowled with great control and when Matt Coon (1 for 41) picked up a wicket Shaldon were 105 for 5 and Ashes were well on top. Unfortunately some loose bowling combined with some good batting from Karl Blackburn (41no), James Chadwick (25) and Carl Woolnough (41no) then took the game away from Ashes as they could not stem the flow of runs. Shaldon reaching the target for the loss of 6 wickets with 5 overs remaining.
After the game Edmonds said "A similar game to last week, we batted reasonably well, but again kept losing wickets to break momentum. Bez, Colesy and Ryan still took us to a decent total though, as a batting unit, we need to get back to the mentality of Yabs and Lloyd's partnership on day 1 and bat big. Bowling wise we just lacked consistency, bowled way too many four balls and so, even though we had them 5 down they were never under huge pressure in terms of run rate. Simple things to work on; getting our heads down with the bat and bowling good areas with the ball. Get those things right and we'll win games like yesterday."
Ash Berry who top scored at the weekend with an unbeaten 53.
Ashburton second team travelled to play Stokeinteignhead and emerged from a low scoring game with a 5 wicket victory.
Robin Lambert (8 overs, 6 maidens 4 wickets for 3 runs) and AJ West (3 for 13) combined to bowl Stokeinteignhead out for just 77.
Marcus West (31) and Martyn Causey (24no) were the main run getters as the target was passed for the loss of 5 wickets in the 22nd over.
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