Claverham CC 1st XI v Winterbourne 1st XI
West of England
Bristol & Somerset Division
Sat 23rd July 2005
Result : Claverham won by 6 Wickets
In form Claverham will travel to table topping Bridgwater in confident mood this weekend following another convincing win against a tough Winterbourne side.
Bowling first Claverham made life difficult for the ‘Bourne openers and the prolific Bird delivered the first knockout of the afternoon by removing Tovey for 8. There was no respite for the visitors at the other end with Chris Peyper (3 for 33) charging in.
Only John Williams with 66 managed any kind of resistance as Cheeseright, Coombes and skipper Hooper slowed things down in the middle of the innings.
Having set up the innings with an early wicket Paul Bird continued to cause havoc and eventually finished with figures of 5 for 38 from his 15 overs including the scalps of the dangerous Phil Purnell and Damien Lingard.
Chasing 152 was never going to trouble this batting line up in confident mood but the visitors began well and removed Peyper for 8 with great work by Ford to stump the prolific South African for only 8. On these occasions there is nobody better to anchor an innings than Paul Bird and that is duly what he elected to do as the middle order arrived. After a short rain delay the innings resumed.
Mat Davies and Stan Copeland with quick 12 and 11 respectively, Damien Devanney with an even quicker 18 set up a quick finish which the beefy Phil Gillott duly accepted by smashing 29 not out from 24 balls, to charge Claverham to their reduced target of 125 with 12 overs remaining.