Gloucestershire County League Division Two

Oldlands (284 for 5) beat Gloucester City Winget (132 all out) by 152 runs

OLDLANDS continued their recent good form with a comprehensive victory over bottom placed Gloucester City Winget at Abwell on Saturday, making it four straight wins in the process.

Winning the toss and having no hesitation in batting first on an excellent pacy wicket, the home side were quickly into their stride against a lively and testing visiting attack and had made an excellent start in taking the score to 92 before Nick Grove was bowled by an excellent delivery for 25.

The in-form Brad Stansfield, Brad Thomas partnership then came together and the cousins recorded another century partnership before Stansfield was stumped for an impressive 109 in only the 27th over.

After overcoming the early threat of the new ball, this was a quality innings of authority, with impressive shots all round the wicket and a second hundred in three innings.

The rate of scoring understandably slowed following the dismissal, but Thomas skillfully guided the innings towards an impressive total of 285 before being bowled for 68, together with a quick fire contribution of 15 from nephew Marley.

In reply, the visitors innings never gained any real momentum after two early wickets for Tom Palmer.

And despite the occasional lusty blow from an aggressive middle order, the combination of tight bowling and good supporting fielding saw regular wickets take the home side to a twenty point victory.

Wickets were shared between Thomas (4), Steve Pennington (3) and one to Dave Brookes, with excellent catches by Tim Thomas, Pete Waite, Palmer, Stansfield and Bobby Woolams (2) who had an impressive afternoon with the gloves behind the stumps.