South Devon claimed their first victory of the season in emphatic style when comfortably beating Thorverton by eight wickets at Marsh Road.

Once the bowlers had done their job in restricting the visitors to an all out total of 166, a fine third wicket partnership of 128 between Divan Marais (80 not out) and Richard Beaumont (37 not out) saw South Devon to victory with 12 overs to spare.

David Knowles with 3-24 from eight overs was the pick of the home bowlers, though captain Jon Martin wasn’t far behind with a mean return of 2-13 from nine; Beaumont also picked up a couple of wickets, while singles went to Gareth Harris and James Allen, who was also responsible for the run out that finished Thorverton’s innings.

Sam Roddick provided 34 from the number 3 slot and James Maxwell, in at number 6, top-scored with 44, with 35 extras making a generous contribution to the Thorverton tally.

In reply, South Devon made a sound start with Mark Andrews (17) and Knowles (nine) putting on 36 for the first wicket; 36-1 then became 40-2 which brought Marais and Beaumont together.

They each mixed aggression with patience as they took their team to a much-needed and valuable victory.

Despite the win, South Devon are still one off the bottom. However, the gap down to winless Dartington and Totnes is now 15 points, while Thorverton – who have also only won once – are just two points above.

Tomorrow South Devon will be looking for another positive result at sixth placed Shobrooke Park.

South Devon 2nd XI are at home to second place Shaldon Optimists in the C Division West 2nd XI.

The hosts will be looking for an improvement on last Saturday’s 103-run defeat by Abbotskerswell on Stover School’s artificial pitch.

The ‘home’ side scored 244-9 and then bowled out South Devon for 141.

Matt Blackmore (32) top scored for the visitors, but the performance of the day was down to Rob Stephens (4-53), who followed up his impressive bowling with 29 runs.