Colwall made the long journey to Devises knowing that they needed to win by 13 clear points and rely on Winget beating Dumbleton in order to secure promotion to West of England Premier Two.

DEVISES v COLWALL

In the end, Colwall completed their seventh consecutive win but narrowly missed out on promotion.

With captain Tom Wolfendale still on his way to the ground Steve Ferguson lost the toss and surprisingly Colwall were asked to bat.

Colwall made a disastrous start with Hornyold, Butler and Wolfendale being blown away by the impressive fast bowling of Ashford Brown. However, David Powell and Jordan Kontarines dug in with the score at 17-3 and weathered the early storm.

Powell battled away scoring with some fine off side shots, whilst Kontarines played some splendid drives. The pair rebuilt the innings adding 90 for the fourth wicket. At this stage Ashford Brown was reintroduced into the attack and managed to induce a miscued shot to a slower ball from Powell to dismiss the opener for 51. His fine second half to the season probably means that the left hander has finished as the leading run scorer in the league with 686 runs (average 62.36).

Kontarines (63) and Tim Riley continued the good work taking the score to 130-4 after 35 overs. However the pair were dismissed in quick succession to leave Colwall 133-6.

The game swung again as Steve Ferguson with the help of Mike King and David Sutton battled away for Colwall to post a reasonable 187-9 in 50 overs. Ferguson was dismissed for 32 in the last but one over. Ashford Brown finished with excellent figures of 5-34.

In reply an aggressive opening spell from Damian Berry meant that Devises lost wickets at regular intervals.

Colwall knew that they needed to dismiss Devises for under 150 in order to prevent the home side from finishing above them. With the home batting displaying nerves Kontarines took two quick wickets to leave Devises at 107-5 after 26 overs. With David Sutton dismissing Ashford Brown, Devises found themselves in deep trouble at 119-6. However opener Stobard batting with no difficulty then found support from the experienced Banham.

Eventually Sutton managed to prise out Stobard for a fine 73, but Banham found good support from Sinclair as Devises edged closer to the target. At 165-7 after 44 overs Berry was reintroduced into the attack. In tandem with Sutton they dramatically finished off the resistance dismissing Devises for 172. Berry produced good figures of 4-42 whilst Sutton capped another fine season with 4-29. Sutton finished the season with 47 league wickets (average 12.89) to confirm his status as one of the best in the league.