Choules reminds batters there is room for improvement after digging team out of a hole against Heathcoat

Promotion-chasing Thorverton pose for the camera: Back (left to right)” Paul Fielder, Tom Diamond, Dan Robbins, Ben Slaviero, David Baldock, Jacob Broom;  Front: Alex Jopling, Jake Choules, Harry Choules, Alistair Chilcott and Ben Coe

By CONRAD SUTCLIFFE

IT’S neck and neck between Thorverton and Ipplepen at the top of the B Division as the promotion race heats up.

While Thorverton were beating Heathcoat 2nd XI by 67 runs at Knightshayes, title rivals Ipplepen squeezed past them into pole position with a six-wicket win over Plymstock.

Ipplepen (15.75) have taken over at the top from Thorverton (15.73) by the tiny margin of two hundredths of a point. Bovey Tracey 2nd XI are half an average point behind in third on 15.22. Talk about tight!

Alistair Chilcott top scored for Thors against Heathcoat with 51 in a total of 174 for nine. After he was eighth out on 112 valuable runs were added by skipper Jake Choules (14no), Alex Jopling (15no) and a sizeable chunk of the 39 extras Heahtcoat gave away.

Heathcoat skipper Matt Hodson (3-27) and Himanshu Aligh (3-26) were the pick of the home bowlers.

Heathcoat’s reply was of the fits-and-starts variety with wickets falling in clumps. The first slide came from 53 for three to 64 for six and included Rob Pryke for 22.

Nathan White (24) and Hodson put on 38 by way of a revival, but the captain’s demise was the beginning of the end for Heathcoat.

Four wickets fell for just five runs scored as Heathcoat collapsed from 102 for six to 107 all out.

Winning captain Choules said while the team is achieveing most of the goals he set them, there remains room for improvement.

"I think that's five in a row since I said we need to go on a run to meet our target for the season," said Choules.

"Alistair Chilcott was back to his best with a brilliant 50, but other than that I was a bit disappointed that it took a 50 stand for the last wicket to get to a respectable total. We know where we need to improve.

"Our bowling and ground fielding was a class above again though.

"It was a tougher game than the scoreline suggests and Heathcoat are a better side than the table reflects in my opinion.

"Overall another great day with one dampener being that Ipplepen overtook us in the table after picking up the same amount of points as us and we have 47 more points than them. An oddity of the average points system including rain-offs".