With the toss won, the visiting captain jumped at the chance to bat first with the sun out and an excellent pitch on which to play. The Winterbourne opening pair of Joe Nelson and Dave Hatchet made life difficult for Farley by giving away nothing in the first few overs.

Joe Nelson was rewarded for his efforts of keeping things tight when A. Redding lashed a wider ball straight to point where the home skipper held on to a simple chance.

This brought the experienced Swain to the crease. Nothing interesting happened for the next two hours as he and K. Redding slowly accumulated runs.

Despite shuffling the bowling and bringing on the wiley Martyn Nokes, the second wicket refused to fall. This gave the young Chris Holton, a recent graduate of the much praised Winterbourne youth system, a chance to have a bowl on his debut for the club. Despite going for 19 from his first two overs for the club, he looked tricky once he found his length and will be a headache for batsman in future as his confidence and pace increases.

It took until the 29th over for the 108 run stand to be broken when Paul Hemming bowled Swain for 45. This sparked a collapse of sorts when 108/1 became 127/5.

This allowed the home side to get back into the game and some excellent catches from Joe Nelson and Mike Turner meant that wickets continued to fall. Only the young A. Thompson proved difficult to dislodge, ending the innings on 22 not out.

After a long afternoon in the sun, the innings eventually ended on 178/8. A reasonable score, but nothing more.

Joe Nelson ended with figures of 3 for 41, Paul Hemming with 2 for 30, but pick of the bowlers was the debutant Dave Hatchet with 3 for 33.

After the interval, the home batsmen were keen to show off their batting might as Mike Turner again got the innings off the a flyer, causing the visiting skipper to re-think his plans as the home side were well above the required rate.

Having to shuffle his bowlers around meant the young A. Thompson came on to bowl, accounting for Mike Turner after a rapid 40.

The steady Gary Arnold then arrived at the crease and managed to forge a partnership with the skipper, taking the score to 86 just before the drinks before falling for a solid 11.

A quick drink and a chat brought Paul Hemming to the crease, who again, formed an excellent partnership to take the game away from the visitors. Hemming hammered anything too short or too full, enabling the captain to keep his head down and tick over at the other end.

Captain Windows was eventually robbed of the chance to see his side home after being give out LBW in controversial circumstances and marched off for 30.

This sparked a truely English batting collapse as Hatchet, Nelson and Snook all fell without troubling the scorers, a pattern that was only stopped by Mike Ling picking up 2.

Paul Hemming found himself stranded at the other end and with wickets running out, had to press on. The spectators had something to cheer about as Hemming passed fifty, giving the middle order some substance.

It proved not to be enough however as despite some resistance from Mike White with 11 not out, the home side fell short of their target.

Now at the business end of the season, the team will be desperate to get back to winning ways with a big clash against local rivals Winterslow IIs this coming Saturday.