Gloucestershire County Trophy Final

Cirencester 129 all out Charlton Kings 133-3

CHARLTON KINGS, who finished bottom of the Glos CCL's division one table, made a mockery of the form book when comfortably beating champions Cirencester in the county trophy final held at Cheltenham CC on Sunday.

Charlton Kings won an important toss and asked Cirencester to bat.

With light rain falling at the start of play, the ball nipped around off the surface and the damp outfield meant that finding the boundary proved difficult.

Cirencester batted steadily for the first 12 overs but at 30-0 heavy rain interrupted proceedings and the teams had to endure a two-hour break.

When play resumed batting proved more difficult still and the Charlton Kings bowlers exploited the conditions.

The batting side were never able to cut loose and with pressure building to post a reasonable total wickets started to fall. The only batsman to get on top of conditions was Bram Coleman whose fine knock of 41 not out at least allowed Cirencester to post a half-respectable total of 129 all out.

The Charlton Kings innings got off to a much more fluent start and runs came at a faster rate (3.5 an over) than they had done earlier in the day.

When opener Ian Mitchell (15) was bowled by a clever slower ball from Billy Breen, Cirencester were at least able to apply some pressure.

However, Ed Cutler became much more assured and started to make Cirencester regret their fielding mistakes – he was dropped twice early on.

When he was eventually caught at point for 56 the damage had been done.

Graham Werry (35*) and Chris Burrow (8*) got Charlton Kings home with five overs and seven wickets to spare as they emerged deserved winners on the day.