By Mike Jelbert
Cornwall Cricket League Division Six East
Newquay 4 v St Stephen 3
In a one-sided match at the Sports Centre, Newquay dominated throughout, eventually winning by ten wickets.
St Stephen won the toss and chose to bat but were in trouble immediately.
With his first ball, 15-year-old left-arm seamer, Aaron Mills, swung the ball into experienced opener Ian Mill, and found the inside edge to just miss the stumps.
Having taken a single, Chris Lomas faced the next ball, got nothing on it and lost his middle stump. From the other end, fellow 15-year-old, Evan Hancock bowled a miserly line conceding just five runs from five overs.
With the run out of Phil Waterson, after 10 overs St Stephen were 16-2.
Change bowlers Kieran Wright and Obi Shams, gave no let up to St Stephen.
Shams bowled Amanda Crowle then had Mill caught behind.
Meanwhile Wright bowled Brandon Hartley and followed this with St Stephen skipper, Josh Raven. In a scruffy stumping, the square leg umpire was unaware of what had happened but Raven, knowing he was out, sportingly walked.
Newquay skipper, Mark Headland, gave three other bowlers a go and Daniel Dunkin took full advantage to pull strongly reaching 22 when Aaron Mills was brought back into the attack.
In spectacular fashion Mills finished off the innings. First ball back he bowled another inswinger to beat Dunkin’s defence and take out middle stump. He repeated the delivery on balls two and three of the over with the same result to take a hat-trick, all bowled middle stump and finish off the St Stephen innings.
The young Newquay bowlers were exceptional with Mills having the tremendous figures of 4-7 from 5.3 overs. Wright and Shams both took 2/7 from their five overs, Hayat Safi had 1-17 with Hancock unfortunate to be wicketless.
In reply, the experienced opening batsmen, Mark Headland and Mike Jelbert were never in danger. Left-handed, Headland enjoyed bowlers bowling at his legs to pull strongly square of the wicket. He smashed 11 fours in reaching 54 not out as Newquay strolled to victory in just 9.4 overs.
In their first season in the league, St Stephen have done well to keep spirits up and fulfil the majority of their fixtures and have a good spirit within the team.
Newquay 77-0 (20pts) beat St Stephen 73 (1pt) by 10 wickets.