ON A day of high scoring the match of the day was at South Cerney where the hosts beat visiting Oaksey in a nailbiting encounter.

Batting first Oaksey started well reaching 81 before the loss of opener Cook (29). A steady stream of wickets then followed but this did not deter Dan Bye (101) from progressing to his maiden hundred for Oaksey.

A lack of support from the other end meant the Oaksey total of 210 all out fell slightly short of what might have been but this was mainly due to fine South Cerney bowling particularly from Garrick Chivers (4-40) and Paul Loxton (3-44).

After the break the hosts responded very well with a fine opening partnership of 120 between Chivers (89) and Jay Russell (66). South Cerney were cruising as they moved to 175-1 but then collapsed in the face of good spells from Hector Whitrow (3-35) and Ken Lane (2-51). A nervy ending then followed with the winning runs hit off the penultimate ball at 214-7.

League leaders Cricklade continued their blistering start to the season with a thumping win at home to Avening & Cherington.

Batting first on an excellent track the hosts posted a huge 317-3 mainly thanks to another rapid hundred from Tom Davies (129* off 77 balls) which included nine fours and eight sixes. The foundation had already been laid by openers Danny Lloyd (47) and Paul Paginton (44) before the Davies onslaught then followed up in grand style by Rhys Mills (41) and Darren Fisher (41*).

With such a daunting target to chase the Avening & Cherington batsmen pragmatically targeted batting points as they crawled to 102-7 off their 40 overs. Opener Darren Pitcher (46) batted solidly in the face of some good bowling by Tom Davies (2-1) and Angelo Rigali (2-12).

Adlestrop proved much too strong for visiting Sherston Magna at Adlestrop Park. After a poor start with the loss of two early wickets the host’s total of 259-3 was built around a fine century from Sam Keen (117*) in partnership with opener Charlie Elliot (85).

In reply visitors Sherston struggled to cope with excellent opening spells from Dan Parker (3-23) and Nick Keen (2-15) with opener David Fitch-Peyton (36) the only batsman to threaten a big score. A late flurry from the tail provided some comfort but the Sherston innings petered out to 89 all out after 34 overs.

In stark contrast to the other matches the visit of Longborough & Sezincote to Oakridge provided a very short and low-scoring mismatch.

Depleted Longborough chose to bat and soon found themselves in all sorts of trouble against opening bowler Richard Heath (4-10) who ran through the top order in no time. Chris Evans (2-5) followed this up as the visitors collapsed to 46 all out in the 23rd over with no batsman reaching double figures and the 22 extras providing nearly half the runs.

The hosts quickly proved that the pitch held no gremlins as they racked up 50-0 in only 10 overs with John Young (29*) top-scoring.