WEPL Gloucestershire
Cirencester 225-8
Stroud 127 all out
CIRENCESTER dished out a heavy defeat to Stroud at The Park on Saturday and pulled further clear of their rivals as they cemented second place in the WEPL Gloucestershire league.

Things started well for Cirencester as captain Gareth Williams won the toss and elected to bat first.

With the in-form Will Mason away it was stalwart Andy Reynolds who opened the batting with Jamie Jamieson-Black.

Stroud opening bowlers Chris Job and Will Golding toiled away early on but true to form Cirencester managed to squeeze the ball to the boundary.

The opening stand was eventually broken with the score on 69 when Jamieson-Black put the ball on a plate to mid off where Dominic Thompson was waiting.

Will Rudd added a further 16 to the score before he and Reynolds fell in quick succession the latter for a well-crafted 49.

With Cirencester on 95-3 new men to the crease Alex Binnie and Rob Lamble set about rebuilding the innings. The two young players, both products of the Cirencester junior section, batted superbly adding 79 for the next wicket.

Lamble played a beautiful innings, eventually stumped for 53; his maiden half century for the club showed great maturity.

With Billy Breen muscling some long blows in the final overs Cirencester reached 225-8 on the final ball to claim maximum batting points.

The Stroud chase got off to an interesting start when off just the fourth delivery James O’Brien launched Breen into The Park for a huge 6.

With the following ball Breen produced a brilliant Yorker delivery to bowl O’Brien.

Tom Fullalove again bowled with great control up the hill conceding just 14 runs from his opening six overs.

Meanwhile, the Stroud batters were having a go at the other end and passed 50. It was then that Simon Rowe joined the attack and had Luke Bennyworth caught at cover; Thompson and Job fell to Rowe soon after.

With Stroud reeling at 67-4 a period of consolidation came with the scoreboard slowly ticking over, but they never looked like getting in the game.

The re-introduction of Breen ended the game when he bowled fantastically to destroy the lower order of Stroud, including three wickets in four balls.

The Stroud innings closed on 127 all out from just 34.5 overs, a heavy victory for Cirencester which confirmed their second place in the table.

This weekend Cirencester travel to Tewkesbury in the final game of the first round of fixtures in WEPL Gloucestershire.