Devon go into Championship final with nothing to lose

DEVON'S route to the NCCA Cluberly Championship final (tomorrow, 10.30am) against Buckinghamshire in Birmingham has been an unconventional one, writes Conrad Sutcliffe.

- 

They began the season with a new coaching team, no professional, a team of mostly untried youngsters and with the sole aim of trying to avoid relegation from Western Division One of the Championship.

Devon ended the season as Western Division champions - a rain-ruined draw with Oxfordshire at Sidmouth clinched it - and head to West Bromwich Dartmouth for their second fourday final meeting with Eastern Division champions Buckinghamshire in good heart.

“When I got appointed my objectives for the county were very simple) said Tim Western, Devon's performance director. “They were to stay in the division and to improve somehow our white ball cricket because it was pretty poor.