Banwell & Churchill are still looking for their first victory of the season after losing to South Petherton.

BANWELL & Churchill hosted South Petherton looking for their first win of the season.

Diver won the toss and asked the visitors to bat on a soft wicket. This didn’t look a good decision as after the 18th over the visitors were on 75 without loss.

The skipper diver turned to the veteran Biggs and Kulkarmi to try and make a breakthrough and stem the runs. The pair did just that both bowling 12 overs straight through, with Biggs finishing with 3-21 and Kulkarmi 1-31, bringing Banwell back in the hunt.

Burdge took the other wicket and there was also two run outs, the first was a great bit of fielding by keeper Jones taking a catch and throwing on to the stumps between his legs as South Petherton finished on 166.

Biggs and Carter started well taking the score to 43 before Biggs was caught for 19. The Banwell collapse started to happen again as they moved from 43-1 to 53-4 in 10 overs.

Carter was next out trying to push the rate after getting bogged down and went for 20. Jones and Gale came and went cheaply. Diver joined Langley at the crease looking to steady the ship, but also needing to score at six a over to keep in the hunt.

The pair put on 25 before they both fell in consecutive balls for 10 and 14 respectively as they looked to keep up with the rate.

Brooks came and went with out troubling the scorers, but the impressive Masters and Kulkarmi kept the fight alive, but when they both fell looking for the big shots for 17 and 11 respectively, the game was over and Banwell were bowled out for 116.

THE 2nd XI suffered a heavy seven wicket defeat in their latest Somerset League match.

They were invited by their hosts Spaxton to bat first on a slow wicket and found runs hard to come by against some accurate bowling. They eventually totalled 136-7 in their allotted overs.

Five batsmen got in to double figures, but none were able to go on and make a big score. The five batsmen were Mike Caddick (10), Ric Hutchinson (14), Pav Kumar (24), Gareth Lloyd (28 not out) and Alex Foukes (35).

Spaxton in reply, found batting much easier on a wicket that had dried out. They scored the necessary runs in quick time for the loss of just three wickets. Veteran John Biggs was the pick of the bowlers taking 2-30 in six overs. Alex Foukes picked up the other wicket to fall.