Revenge is sweet for Ashcott

Ashcott and Shapwick 134-5 beat Cheltenham 130 all out

Ashcott and Shapwick entertained former Premier One champions Cheltenham on Saturday looking for revenge after the drubbing they had received from the Gloucestershire side earlier in the season.

Captain Ben Rudge won the toss and elected to field after the previous week’s successful chase at Warminster.

Unfortunately, Shapwick got off to the worst possible start, not only allowing Cheltenham to advance easily to 45-0 from nine overs, but also felling an umpire via a wayward throw at the stumps.

Thankfully, the umpire was fine to continue after a few minutes, and soon afterwards Rudge (3-32) got the breakthrough, castling Ferbrache with a beauty.

But, like the previous week, the turning point came with the early introduction of the spin of Wayne Spencer (2-25) and the steady swing of Nayan Karmarkar (3-14).

The brakes were firmly put on the Cheltenham innings as the other opener Walker, who had been batting nicely with the ball coming on, suddenly realised he had no scoring options.

Gallagher tried to reverse sweep his way out of trouble but was well caught behind by Sam Edmunds standing up to the stumps.

Cheltenham tried everything but just could not find a way of scoring runs against the nagging bowling.

George Pearson was lucky to survive his first ball as Tom Barr took a magnificent one-handed diving catch but allowed the ball to drag along the floor as he landed.

The Shapwick fielder showed real sporting honesty in telling the batsman to stay where he was as he started to walk off.

Barr soon took the wicket of Pearson anyway as James Hayman took a fine catch at short extra cover. Some late hitting took Cheltenham to 130 all out, a long way under-par at Shapwick, but they gave themselves a glimmer of hope when Patrick Parkin dismissed Spencer in the third over of Shapwick’s reply.

But at this point Steve Tinnion (35) and Karmarkar (53) began to dominate, racing along at five-an-over against some extremely poor bowling.

Off-spinner Ben McHardie-Jones (3-31) was easily the pick and he eventually tempted Tinnion into a lofted shot with just 30 needed to win.

However, Shapwick will be disappointed that they then proceeded to lose three more wickets, costing them two batting bonus points in the process, although Edmunds could feel extremely aggrieved at the lbw decision he received.

Nevertheless, Shapwick sailed comfortably passed the target via four leg byes from the trusty right pad of Sam Patey and climb up to mid-table.

Saturday’s trip to Thornbury could have a large bearing on whether Shapwick end the season gunning for promotion to Premier One, or end up in a relegation dogfight in this extraordinarily tight division.