THERE may have been ominous rumblings in the distance but the weather held off long enough for Swindon to get reacquainted with that winning feeling last weekend.

Whilst a raft of other local matches were curtailed by Saturday’s rainfall, lady luck shone on Swindon sufficiently enough to allow them to clinch a tense single-wicket success over Marlborough at the County ground, albeit with the clash reduced to 39 overs apiece.

Home batsman Jon Sore was chuffed that his team emerged on the right side of a tight encounter, recovering from their heavy nine-wicket loss at Marshfield seven days previous.

“The weather was quite strange on Saturday because it was sunny all day but we could hear thunder in the background whilst we were playing,” said Sore.

“We’d already seen that Wootton Bassett’s game had been rained off and they were playing not far away from us, but it was sunny for a lot of the day until the wind blew the clouds over to us.

“We bowled first and I think that, unfortunately for Marlborough, we ended up with the advantage. After 30 overs, they were on about 100 but had to go back out and play the last few, meaning that they had to completely change their game plan.

“It made it harder for them but that’s the way it went and they had to deal with that.

“I think bowling-wise, it was one of our better bowling performances because we kept it quite tight but batting-wise, we gave away quite a few cheap wickets.

“We were lucky that Andrew Staff and Tom Codling came in and made sure things went our way – our lower to middle-order guys did great.

“It was really nice to see us come through a game like that. It was really tense and we only won by one wicket but I’m really glad that we did.”

Swindon won the toss and handed the visitors the task of batting first, with Cameron Baden helping turn the screw on Marlborough as he took 3-26.

However, the away side’s overseas danger man Zwelibanzi Homani struck 60 not out whilst Will Langton made 53 as they posted 149-5 from their reduced innings.

In reply, Swindon were made to sweat for the spoils, with wickets tumbling at regular intervals during their run chase as Paul Smith proved chief antagonist, the Marlborough man ending the afternoon with figures of 5-27.

Sam Page (21) and Daniel Baker (20) did their best to get the hosts motoring but the introduction of captain Andrew Staff at number eight – he hit an unbeaten 36 – helped push Swindon over the line.

Tom Codling also contributed with 34 and Staff’s men reached 150-9 with little more than an over to spare.

Swindon, who are sixth in the WEPL Wiltshire division table, go to third-from-bottom Calne next weekend.