Crucial stand key to win as Evesham extend lead

Saturday's 101-run success owed more to a battling seventh wicket stand between Luke Radford and Will Bailey than an excellent display with the ball that Aussie Mark Penter collect a handful of cheap wickets.

Radford (36no) and Bailey (35) came together with the visitors on 140-6 after 45 overs when they smashed another 80 runs to take Eve-sham to 221-7 on a slow wic-ket of variable bounce.

Earlier, the right-handed Neal Radford had been given opening duties alongside left-hander Ian Suckling who was soon joined by fellow left-hander Penter.

The pair took the score into the seventies when the reliable Suckling departed but Stuart Berry proved a more than able ally to the Australian.

After Penter's 65 and Ber-ry's 30, Radford junior and Bailey steered the league leaders to 221-7.

Redditch must have felt that they had let their opponents off the hook but they came out with all guns blazing after tea and knocked 70 off their target without losing a wicket.

However, Hill's temporary departure with cramp proved the turning point and, thanks to spinners Penter and Stuart Langstone, the visitors clawed their way back into the match.

Langstone removed both openers but it was Penter who did most of the damage with figures of 5-28 as Redditch lost their last five batsmen for the same number of runs.

Not to be outdone after his failure with the bat, Radford returned to collect three wickets and cap another good day for the Avon Street men.

Revenge will be in the air on Saturday when Pershore are the visitors after Clements' side lost the summer's earlier meeting.

While the firsts are sitting pretty at the top of the table, the second team moved up to sixth after a 40-run defeat of Studley.

The hosts recorded an impressive 212-9 thanks in the main to the efforts of Marcus Humpstone, Richard Layton, David Higginson, Gareth Howman and Darren Key, while Layton and Hutton shared nine wickets as Studley were dismissed for 172.