LECHLADE had a fine bowling display to thank as they returned to winning ways with a six-wicket victory over Bristol at the weekend.

Having lost the toss, the visitors, depleted by injury, took to the field and struggled early on as Bristol made their way to 95 for the loss of just two wickets.

However, with Harvey Jupp (3-40) now in the attack, having already taken the scalp of Fin Trenouth (38), he picked up two more wickets in an impressive spell that left Bristol floundering on 124-5.

Jack Ellison (34) and Will Rudge (25) set about rebuilding but with the run rate well down, it took the hosts until the 44th over to reach 171, with the return of Liam Smith and the introduction of Benny Ellis cleaning up the tail order to set a target of 181.

Lechlade made light work of the chase as they all contributed with the bat, Tom Young (41) top scoring as they secured their first win in four outings.

“We just had a couple of meetings to find out what was going wrong over the last few weeks because we lost three in a row and how we could turn that around,” said bowler Smith, who was full of praise for two of his colleagues with the ball.

“On Saturday, we started off ok. The pitch was pretty flat, as we’ve had pretty much all season, but it was actually the guys in the middle, Harvey Jupp and Tom Barnes (1-23), who really got them behind the run rate and pinned them down.

“They lost a few wickets in the middle and never really picked up from there.

“We didn’t try and overdo things. People were just sticking to their normal line and lengths and just kept hitting one area, bowling cricket basically.

“Rather than trying to be too fancy in taking wickets, we let the wickets come to us.

“We thought they were probably 100 below par and we were pretty confident with that at the break.”

Smith, who went to Malvern College alongside skipper Freddie Martin, is hoping his side can now build on the result, and knows that restricting their opponents will be key moving forward.

“I think, what we were struggling with in the first part of the season, not only were we not scoring enough runs with the bat, every game, teams were scoring over 250 runs and someone in the opposition were scoring over 100,” he added.

“For us to bowl a team out for 180 on a flat wicket, it’s a great stepping stone for us to take that forward into the next game and be full of confidence.”