ALVIN Pollard and Callum French took three wickets each as Exmouth condemned Hatherleigh to an 85-run defeat on the Maer.
Hatherleigh may be bumping along in the bottom of the Premier table, but Exmouth skipper Bob Dawson was wary of the threat they posed.
“Hatherleigh should have beaten Heathcoat the week before so whatever their position might suggest they were not going to be easy,” said Dawson.
Dawson was able to modify his view after Exmouth had made 212 for nine on a difficult batting track.
“It was hard work scoring runs on that pitch and 212 was a massive total,” said Dawson.
“With what we had on the board, coupled with our spin attack, we were always going to win with 212 on the board.”
The bulk of Exmouth’s runs came from the top three of Callum French (37), Dan Pyle (26) and Dan Pyle (21).
“The rest were almost all 12s, 14s and 15s, which shows just how hard it was out there,” said Dawson. “They were all useful scores given the conditions.”
Dan Fogerty took three Exmouth wickets and there were two each for Eddie Jones and Rob Fishleigh.
Hatherleigh were tied down early by Exmouth’s George Greenway and Davie Lye (2-24) and soon behind the clock.
Ryan Davies (29) and Rob Cockwill (30) made some progress, but the next bests were Gareth Tidball (10) and Mark Lake (17no), which was never going to be enough.
Pollard (3-23) got into the middle order, leaving French (3-17) to deal with the stragglers.
Losing captain Lake agreed with Dawson’s view it was a difficult track to bat on, but there were other factors in his side’s defeat.
“Letting Exmouth get to many runs on a 175 pitch was the first issue,” said Lake.
“And as the wicket got more difficult to bat on, it was always going to be a tough chase.
“Yet again getting no where near batting out our overs out is becoming a problem.”
