West of England Premier League Prem 2 Glos/Wilts

Corsham 156 ao lost to Thornbury 160-3 by seven wickets

THORNBURY have continued their impressive unbeaten run in the West of England Premier League Prem 2 Glos/Wilts and are now 14 points ahead of second-placed Dumbleton after a great away win at Corsham last Saturday.

The Thornbury bowlers, lead by Dan Davis with three wickets, had Corsham in a fix after they were put into bat.

And, in reply, Marc Lezar lead Thornbury home with a superb century.

It was an eagerly anticipated fixture for Thornbury with the two first XI sides not having played each other since 2011 when Thornbury were last in the West of England Prem One division.

Corsham, relegated at the end of last season, are in a rebuilding phase and Thornbury played very solid winning cricket.

Captain Luke Davis again called correctly and inserted Corsham on a greenish wicket with the outfield looking lush and a touch damp due to a wet end to May.

Thornbury took to the field, rolling back the years with veteran John Wormwell, Thornbury's cricket chairman, playing the role of 12th man as regular opening bowler Tom Bradley was unable to make the start time of 12:30pm.

Luke Davis, moving up a slot from his normal first change, took a while to settle as Mitchell hit three boundaries in the first over.

Davis stuck to his guns and resumed his normally accurate fare trapping the opener LBW in his second over.

Meanwhile, Harry Wormwell started very tidily from the other end with only five runs coming from his first three overs.

Enter Dan Davis, the Thornbury secret weapon this season at first change in the eighth over, to bowl an outstanding spell of ten overs straight through, ending up with very creditable figures of 2-23 with four maidens, both wickets being clean bowled.

With Luke Davis taking himself off after five overs, Harry Wormwell returned at the other end to continue to test the Corsham batting technique.

Bowling a good straight wicket-to-wicket line, Wormwell induced an edge from Collier which Marc Lezar caught two handed at full stretch in the slips.

Danny Slade, the first XI top wicket taker this season, entered the fray in the 19th over and immediately exerted control taking the wicket of Corsham star batsman Tom Smith caught and bowled off a rocket-like return in his second over.

Corsham battled on and reached the drinks break at 25 overs with the score at 110-4.

As is the way after a break, Dan Davis, bowling his 10th and final over, ended with a wicket maiden dismissing the classy looking Crampton.

With Smith and Crampton gone, the remaining Corsham batsmen struggled to get any momentum and were bowled out for 156 in 40.2 overs.

That does not tell the whole tale as Danny Slade bowled well, ending up with figures of 10-2-26-2. Vishal Mamgai continued the slow bowlers control with figures of 3-0-8-0, Tom Bradley, showing good pace, ended with figures of 4-1-11-1 and Wormwell wrapped up the innings with figures of 8.2-1-37-3.

All in all the bowlers did a great job, ably backed up by good ground fielding and great catching.

Skipper Luke Davis threw the Corsham ground staff a curve ball by asking the umpires if he could have the light roller applied to the wicket during the tea break.

Davis reckoning that this would remove any residual moisture and give the Thornbury batters a flat track to operate on.

The Corsham staff thought the request was a joke, apparently never having had such a request in twenty-odd years, according to the bar banter afterwards.

Needless to say, this meant the second innings start was delayed as the roller was freed from its padlocked tree location and trundled up and down for a few minutes.

This could have all backfired as the normally reliable Thornbury openers of Dan Davis and Nick Willis-Stovold took to the field at 3.40pm and then both decided to head back to the pavilion with one apiece to their names with less than three overs gone.

Enter the Lezar brothers, Marc and Dan, who then proceeded to put on a batting masterclass for the assembled crowd.

Marc especially showed great timing and power with some splendidly placed shots through the covers and some brutal hitting over the top of the fielders, the boundary rope, the boundary netting and the scorebox as he made his way to a fantastic century off only 58 balls in 63 minutes.

Dan working his way back to fluency, after a couple of lean weeks by his standards, joined the display ending with 49 not out from 38 balls.

Marc eventually holed out for 101 off sixty balls. The damage had been done and Thornbury notched up 160-3 off 17.1 overs in just 74 minutes to win by seven wickets.