Tipton St John played host to regular visitors from Shepton Montague, Somerset ‘The Full Monty’, writes Phil Wright.

The Somerset side batted first at Tipton and had taken their score to 43 when David Birch bowled two batsmen in what was his opening over!

That was as good as it got for a while and there were no further inroads made into the visiting batting until Phil Wright bowled Masters for 25 and Legg for 18 to leave the score on 132-4 after 30 overs.

A great catch by Reese Whittington gave Wright his third wicket and then Birch returned to remove opener Pollard for what was a fine 67.

Birch finished with impressive figures of 3-18.

Tom Whittington mopped up the tail bagging a brace of wickets, but sloppy fielding and bowling allowed the visitors to take their score to an imposing 177.

The Tipton reply was led by Keith Collins and David Dawson who shared a superb century opening stand. Collins was first to return to the pavilion for a splendid 56. Adam Gibbons was next in, and out, falling for 18 and that spelled something of a collapse as Tipton’s brittle batting fell apart!

Dawson, who should make his 1000th appearance for Tipton next week watched wickets tumble around him and was eventually caught trying to close the gap, dismissed for an excellent 63

Six wickets fell for just 22 runs and tail enders Mark Channon and Phil Wright were unable to score the 12 runs needed off the final 11 balls leaving the reply closing on 172-8 with the visitors winning the match by a margin of five runs.