POTTERNE went 20 points clear at the top of the WEPL Premier One table following a dominant 154-run victory over Lansdown on Saturday, writes JONATHAN LEIGHFIELD.

Combined with second-placed Bath’s shock loss away at Taunton St Andrews, Potterne’s result moved them further clear of the chasing pack with only six games remaining this summer.

Neil Clark’s men were sent out to bat first at Combe Park and good knocks from Thomas Cullen (75) and Sahan Wijerathne (56no) helped the visitors grind out 242-6 from their 50 overs.

In reply, Lansdown’s captain Jordan Price opened his shoulders from the start and raced to 29 from 12 balls.

But once both openers had been dismissed by star man Tahir Afridi, the Potterne bowler set about clearing through the rest of his opposition as he emerged from bowling Lansdown out for 88 with figures of 7-31 from his 10 overs.

Admitting he would have likely bowled first if he had won the toss, Potterne skipper Clark lauded the performance of man of the match Afridi.

He said: “Tahir bowled superbly and was just hitting the stumps every ball. All of his dismissals were bowled, caught behind or LBW.

“He’s just got such good control. You know that from one end, you’re not going to get many bad balls and he’ll be asking questions of the batsmen all the time.

“If you can get someone bowling in partnership with him with similar control, it works really well for us because the batsmen end up taking a risk against the other guy.

“And the young lad, Ben Higton, came on for an over at the end and got two wickets, so it was a good day.”

Despite the sizeable gap that Potterne have created for themselves since Clark took over the captaincy, the skipper knows there is a lot of cricket to be played until his side can relax and call themselves champions.

He said: “Bath losing helped us, but I keep saying to the lads that we need to take it one game at a time.

“As soon as you start looking ahead, that’s when you can slip up.

“We’ve still got to play Bath at the end of August, so hopefully we can win there and take the pressure off.“We just need to play the way we have been over the last eight games and the rest will take care of itself.”