Tour Warm-Up Goes Cold For Tour XI

In Tuesday's historic first-ever Tour friendly game, defeat was plucked from the jaws of victory as the Tour XI went down by 9 runs against The Cavaliers. Captain Mark Chilton said that clearly there is improvement needed before the First Test next Wednesday.

Fielding first the Tour XI produced a disciplined bowling display supported by some spectacular fielding, especially from Phil Nourse. Seamo finally remembered what line & length was all about, ringers Gascoyne & Skelton produced eight tidy overs, Noursey beguiled with spin and Vish with his cunning medium-pacers, restricting Cavaliers to 83-7 in their twenty overs. Everyone fielded well but Phil Nourse was magnificent in the deep, Ron took an excellent catch at square leg and Ganja turned back the years behind the stumps with a solid display to threaten Newbs & Mostyn's glovedom on tour.

Batting was clearly going to be more problematic and so it proved, for everyone apart from Colin Warner who carried on where he left off from his last tour in 1963 chipping & smoting the ball to all four corners of the ground. He found support from Tom Seaman, who made 10, before being joined by Ron Ghose at which point victory seemed likely. Sadly this optimism proved unfounded, Colin departing for an excellent 29 and the Cavaliers then introducing two swift & accurate closing bowlers in the fading light. Wickets tumbled and when Ron departed for 15 the game was up. The Cavaliers won by 9 runs.

Scorecard:-

Cavaliers 83-7 (20 overs)

Dan Gascoyne 4/0/24/0
Pete Seaman 4/2/9/1
Ron Ghose 4/0/22/1
Kevin Skelton 4/1/9/2
Phil Nourse 2/0/3/1
Pete Ashford 2/0/9/1

Tour XI 74 all out (19.3 overs)

Michael Nourse 3
Pete Ashford 2
Colin Warner 29
Mark Chilton 0
Tom Seaman 10
Ron Ghose 15
Dan Gascoyne 5
Phil Nourse 0
Kevin Skelton 1
Dave Kingdon 0 not out
Pete Seaman 0

In the bar afterwards it was agreed that Geezer would have declared this not to be a "first class" game so there was a general consensus not to worry and we look forward with confidence to the forthcoming five test series in North Devon.