WOOTTON Bassett captain Darren Beasant praised the “fabulous” Sam Lawro after he spearheaded a successful run chase against Box in Wiltshire League Division One.

Lawro anchored the Bassett innings with a stylish 94, only falling as he tried to reach his century with a maximum with his side requiring just five to win, as a target of 178 was reached with minimal fuss and an over to spare.

Of the innings, Beasant said: “Sam got the score up to around four or five to win and six for his hundred and aimed for the shot in one, missed it and was bowled for 94 after Harvey (Cummins) had pointed out he needed six for 100.

“It was the same old Sam. He was fabulous, to be honest. They had a decent bowling attack, bowled it in good areas and moved it around early on and he had to spend some time getting himself in but if you missed your line or length you got punished.

“Once he gets 50 or 60 he’s pretty hard to bowl at. He’s a fine, fine player.”

Earlier, the spin twins of Lee Stevens and Ian Lancaster claimed seven wickets between them with a stifling brand of slow bowling after tidy opening spells from Rog Willoughby and Akash Sharma.

Beasant was pleased with the victory which propelled Bassett to third in the table.

He said: “They were what we expected. They are a pretty professional outfit and a well-run cricket team. They’d clearly done their homework.

“They take their cricket very seriously and it was probably not as comfortable as the scorecard made it look. We were much improved up front, got an early breakthrough and once we managed to get Ian and Lee in tandem there was a 15-over period where we choked them pretty successfully.

“Ian took a stunning caught and bowled to get rid of Richard Foley when he didn’t have many and from there we controlled it quite well.”