DYMBURY, the combined Ledbury and Dymock Saturday side, had a narrow loss to touring team Llandeilo in an entertaining and varied game.

DYMBURY v LLANDEILO

The visitors batted first and were soon in trouble against the guile and accuracy of Steve Evans (4-31) supported by the sharpness of Will Duckworth (1-42). Recovery came from A Prytlech who notched up an effortless century ably accompanied by R Thomas (30). This enabled the Welsh team to post a formidable score on a slow wicket of 220.

Dymbury began their reply brightly with Phil Ward (13) and Rob Yeoman (71no) settling into his familiar anchor role. Matt Ehrlich contributed a gem of an innings, intelligently picking the gaps in the field to produce a stream of boundaries. His dismissal two shy of a half century precipitated a mini-collapse as J Spencer (3-41) and I Jones (1-17) removed the middle order.

The arrival of Kevin Smith changed the tone of the game again as he struck his maiden 50 with the confidence of someone who had been doing it all his life. His innings of 60no was particularly memorable for the power of his straight hitting. It included three consecutive sixes off the Llandeilo captain in an over that yielded 25 runs to bring Dymbury within sight of an improbably victory.

Unfortunately tighter bowling followed and Dymbury ran out of steam a highly creditable eight runs short.