Symene 130/1 (20pts) beat Witchampton 127 a.o. by 9 wickets

Symene maintained their promotion push with a comprehensive 9 wicket defeat of below-strength Witchampton.

The visitors chose to bat first but came up against typically economical opening bowling spells from Bradley Wilkinson and Robin Jones, both of whom, for once, went wicketless.  

The introduction of Ethan Robertson and Tom Goatly achieved the breakthrough, backed up with sharp fielding typified by Ben Strong’s superb catch off Jack Bartlett to remove James Allaway for 22.

The Witchampton top six batters all reached double figures and reached 102/3 after 30 overs, and were set fair for a better total from their remaining 10 overs, but Jack Bartlett’s 3/23 mopped up the tailenders for just 25 more runs.

After tea the Symene batters were in no mood to hang around with Leo Gurd returning to form scoring a hard-hitting undefeated 62 and Sam Challis’s typically elegant 56 n.o. finding the gaps in the field to polish off the reply quickly with 20 overs remaining.

With three games remaining the result leaves Symene breathing down the neck of second placed team Kingston Lacy, closing the gap on them to 10 points and thus sets up an exciting run-in to the end of the season.