Exmouth suffered a disastrous afternoon on their visit to Bovey Tracey when they went down by eight wickets in a match that lasted for just 45 overs and five deliveries!

After winning the toss and batting, first Exmouth skipper Richard Baggs would certainly have not expected his side to be all back in the pavilion inside 27 overs for the princely sum of 116!

That said, the Maer men did go into the game without three regulars – Bob Dawson, Ben Twine and Sam Harris – and they were missed as just two batsmen managed to get into double figures.

There was a knock of 13, from 21 balls faced, by number six bat Dan Pyle and a terrific 65-ball innings from Miles Lenygon that saw him score a wonderful 73 – he hit 11 fours and one six.

Lenygon went to the wicket after the early loss of skipper Baggs (1), Andrew Buzza (6) and Jon Evennett, the latter to a golden duck, with the scoreboard on 5-3!

When he was ninth man out, he had scored 73 of the 109 runs the team had mustered. Ollie Dawe was the 10th and final Exmouth wicket to fall when he fell for a six-ball one.

The sorry tale of woe with regard to the Maer men’s batting was that Pyle’s 21-ball stay at the wicket was the second longest ‘survival’ after the Lenygon 65-ball stay at the wicket.

Sandy Allen bagged a sixth ball duck and Callum French joined Evennett as the other ‘golden duck’ while Lawrence Greenway was out to the 15th ball he faced for one and David Lye faced just four balls for his one run.

The not out batsman was Alvin Pollard with six from a seven ball stay at the wicket.

Exmouth were able to claim two wickets – both to catches held by wicket keeper Sandy Allen, the first off the bowling of Ollie Dawe and the second off a delivery sent down by David Lye – but, from 27-2, Bovey raced home to cross the winning line off the second ball of the 20th over and consign the Maer men to a second successive Tolchards Devon League top flight defeat.

Exmouth skipper Richard Baggs said post match: “To be honest we were nothing short of embarrassing.

“Apart from Miles [Lenygon] we batted pathetically with weak dismissals, myself very much top of that list with loose shots.

“We need to learn to score ugly runs very quickly!”

The Maer men’s skipper added: “We did have a very honest team talk after the game and changes will be made to personnel and order.”