West of England Premier League Prem 2 Glos/Wilts

Rockhampton 166 ao lost to Goatacre 169-9 by one wicket

ROCKHAMPTON lost a nail biter to champions elect Goatacre on Saturday to end any hope of securing promotion out of the division.

Having lost the toss, Rockhampton were put into bat on a wicket that offered plenty of assistance to the bowlers.

But in the opening batsmen of Jamie Wakefield and Matt Tyler, Rockhampton have the ideal pair to counter those conditions and they were able to put 85 on for the first wicket without much alarm before a flurry of wickets saw Wakefield (15), Matt Tyler (45) and Tristan de Beer (0) all fall.

That left Rockhampton on 86-3 and Guy Brothwood and Will Tyler the job of rebuilding the innings and setting a platform to post a total of two hundred or more.

The pair batted well and with little difficulty before Will Tyler was caught in the deep for 26 which sparked another batting collapse.

But this one was far more severe as Rockhampton went from 138-3 to 166 all out with Brothwood (23) and Richard Howell (19 not out) being the only other players to reach double figures in a disastrous batting display.

In response, the league leaders got off to a good start despite losing one of the openers early on and soon progressed to 70-1 with the big hitting Jack Haines smashing 46 but he was caught attempting to reach his fifty.

But 70-1 soon became 83-5 as Sam Nichols (2-11) took two wickets in two balls and Dave McCabe and Brothwood struck.

Goatacre rallied, and, with Brad Dawson and Jonathan Wilkins in form, they were still very much in control.

But when Brothwood trapped Dawson lbw and Wakefield (2-50) cleaned up Wilkins, Rockhampton were in with a chanceof a very unlikely victory.

Brothwood struck again to record figures of 3-20 and McCabe (2-34) returned with the ninth wicket with the visitors still needing ten to win.

It was a very tense finish as the returning Chris Willoughby was able to bowl two maidens with an edge behind just dropping short of slip, there was a huge lbw shout off the bowling of McCabe but the visitors scraped home with a four through extra cover to see them home by one wicket.

And with three games remaining, Goatacre are odds-on favourites to win the league and head into Prem One next season.

Meanwhile, next for Rockhampton is a trip to struggling Chippenham as The Rams look to cement their top five finish and try to increase the forty point gap between themselves and Thornbury.