Scorecard

Chagford v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Fri 14 Aug 2026 at 6.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 9 wickets

Match report Match report by Harry Everett...

Erratics smash Chagford’s English lot after one of their Aussies took 30 to retire off the first over!
Alternative title: Chagford disappoint Erratics greatly with astro wicket & 16.4 overs cricket, but slightly redeemed by Err win & pizza in great quantity after.
Alternative thesis title; Astro cricket – yay or nay?

An 18 ball 52, striking at 188 in a T20 friendly and you still lose by nine wickets!
Wow Chagford’s English contingent let themselves down!

Fuming at playing on astroturf amidst the most stunning summer this century has seen thus far, Lee Grant decided to bowl a full toss at the overseas Aussie first ball then a lovely few half-volley slot balls to get him in and out asap.
A tactic seen before in ‘retire on 25 cricket’, but rarely as emphatically as on this occasion and rarely as successfully for the fielding side who emphatically lost the early individual battle but then emphatically won the war!
Your reporter was in the middle of daftly signing up to play five games in five days and having been daringly close at short extra cover first ball, not knowing Lee nor Lucas Pedrochi’s first over plan, nearly wished he had not signed up for this game when the astro rumours turned out to be true and the first ball missile was hit straight at me.
I could not really get out of the way of it so had to stop it then limp around the outfield for the duration of the first innings with a painful hand, hip flexor and about everything else a 30-year-old’s body should still have working slightly better..In hindsight Lee might have preferred me to just let it through my legs for four as fours are less damaging to figures than sixes, but first ball I was not expecting quite the five-ball onslaught to come!
Harry Senior is a capable batter of South Devon and Dartmoor league fame, plus Manor-Ashbury Golf resort greenkeeping casual summer work has allowed him to go away in winters and play and keep golf greens yellow or so in Melburnian heat, just like the outfield this game was played upon. Though he is known for leg side larruping, he managed just six off two before Ben Yarde Buller’s astro length for turn and bounce had him caught behind.
Now there is a clear example in this game for warming up. One man out of 22 warmed up his bowling prior to this game (in the astroturf nets specifically alone and diligently) and one man bowled particularly effectively and against five of their six best batters! BYB we doff our cap to you.
A leg spinner’s length on artificial surfaces has to be very different to that on grass to take wickets and to not just be cannon fodder that they can rock back to and effortlessly pull to the boundary.
BYB combined flight and guile nicely to run through four of their top six. A second cap should also be doffed to the skipper for taking the gamble of opening with leg-spin!
A foe I had played against in the A Division thrice this year (Devon T20 Cup quarter-final as well as both league games) Harry Mount came in at an almost nose-bleed high spot of number three, managing 22 off 12 balls to third top score for Chagford but Grant sent him on his way giving Kirby a second catch.
A couple of weeks later I was employed to commentate on the Chagford six a side tournament in the wettest of conditions you have ever seen cricket played in, trust me, even worse than some famous Erratics water polo matches!
Having been stunning August bank holiday weather the year before for it, there were great expectations, but anyhow back to that relevance… I used this day to interrogate/interview the young Aussie on his club career and pathway to Chagford.
He was not due to be the overseas, his girlfriend Lily had been employed to replace me as Chagford Ladies Head Coach and player (my commentary and MCC commitments not allowing me to travel to Chagford all summer after coaching them at Okehampton in the winter), and he just came along for the ride, a nice bonus for the D Division West.
They had their Essex/Aussie recruit too, but Lucas seemed to be the best of the three, particularly good at whacking medium pace over long on as he did again at the six a side day!
Anyhow back to the game after that brief context given. Girlfriend Lily came in at nine and soon was reunited with her flame and they together put on a useful last wicket stand which I reckon was the highest stand of their innings where both batters faced a ball (me discounting Lucas hitting .66666 off Lee’s first over whilst Harry Senior got neck ache at the non-striker’s end.)
16.4 overs they batted!! What an insult to a purist cricket side on the 14th of August when we all had Metro Bank Fever and were trying to all stay away from the wretched 16.4!!!

Erratics went about their innings in a more sedate, calm, old school T20 way of batting and absolutely cruised to victory by nine wickets with plenty to spare!
I set myself a challenge to try and score at the same strike rate as Lucas without slogging over cow/long on. Alternatively – maybe I should just admit I am never going to be a T20 whacker and smash sixes over the top, even on an astroturf against a 13-year-old lady I have coached for years…
Anyhow I was dismayed to see the young medium-pacer I had been working with for hours over the past few years open with off-spin. Disastrously she had been called for chucking in a Sunday ladies game and none of the Devon coaching staff wanted to try and help her remodel her action which we had been working on for hours over the winter before I got into my busy summer, so just told her to bowl offies!
She duly bowled me some freebies and I managed to retire off 10 balls, straight to her mum on the bench to plead her to not give up on her lovely seamers just because some Devonians deemed her Indian heritage’s hyper-flexion of the elbow as a terminal problem for her to bowl seam aged 13!
A top five or six in almost any cricket team are picked to score runs and set up or win the game for their side. Now in truth we all know this rarely happens as smoothly as the prior sentence suggests. But all of the top five passing 20, only one being dismissed and the sixth man being 9* getting the side past the finishing line is a pretty emphatic way to clinch a game of cricket without needing massive shots over the ropes!
They tried to up the pace, but it was not accurate enough and more pace on astroturf=easier to hit boundaries with no swing or nip to worry the batters.
Rick, Krupps, Lee and Matt=fist pump emoji, job done, minimum fuss.
Now to the bar where the Okehampton table tennis Queen I had set up with my groomsman to wed next month told me BYB was a pretty handy table tennis player too. Game challenge laid down then of course.
That explains the spin control! BYB a top contender for motm allowing us top six to simply do our jobs…if only English test bats cba to do that in high profile tests too without trying to bat like….rant over enough written 😊

Chagford Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
10w 1b  
for 10 wickets
11
152 (16.4 overs)		     
Lucas Pedrochi ct  Grant b Hailwood 52 18 1 7 288.89
Harry Senior ct  Kirby b Yarde Buller 6 3 1 200
Harry Mount ct  Kirby b Grant 22 12 4 183.33
Charlie Balfour b  Yarde-Buller 0 1 0
Jack Hughes ct  Crawford b Yarde-B 1 4 25.00
Pete Sinclair ct  Crawford b Yarde-B 9 8 2 112.50
James Warner ct  Grant b Luscombe 8 6 1 133.33
Josh Pickard ct  Perkin b Power 16 12 2 133.33
Lily Finlay Not Out  25 22 3 113.64
Mille Goodhand ct  Crawford b Power 0 2 0
Matt Smith ct  Crawford b Hailwood 2 7 28.57

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Lee Grant3.0044144.0014.67
Ben Yarde-Buller4.012847.007.00
Will Luscombe3.0032132.0010.67
Phil Power4.0031215.507.75
Mark Hailwood2.401728.506.38

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
4nb 14w 5b  
for 1 wickets
23
156		        
Harry Everett Retired Not Out  26 10 4 1 260.0
Richard Lindsay Retired Not Out  27 28 3 96.43
Jayakrupakar Nallala b  J Warner 20 16 4 125.00
Lee Grant Retired Not Out  26 17 1 2 152.94 2
Matt Crawford Not Out  25 17 4 147.06 4
Jon Perkin Not Out  9 11 81.82 1
Jonathan Kirby   2
Ben Yarde-Buller  
Will Luscombe  
Phil Power  
Mark Hailwood  

Chagford Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Millie Goodhand2.001700.008.50
Josh Pickard2.001500.007.50
Charlie Balfour2.002000.0010.00
James Warner2.0013113.006.50
Matthew Smith2.001800.009.00
Harry Mount2.001800.009.00
Jack Hughes2.002000.0010.00
Lily Finlay2.002100.0010.50
Peter Sinclair1.00500.005.00
Harry Senior0.20400.0012.00