THE weekend saw Brecon 1st team continued their revival with a narrow 12 run victory at home to the Welsh Asians moving them into the top four of the League for the first time this season.

Meanwhile the 2nd team extended their unbeaten run to six with a 93 run win away to Monmouth 2nd team.

At home in a game sponsored by Mitchell Meredith Chartered Accountants, Brecon, the 1st team fought hard batting first to post 167 for 8 which was built around an opening stand of 63 between James Hudson (40) and Matt Williams (36) on a day where runs were always at a premium.

There followed a steady fall of wickets and it was left to John Kenchington (25no) to steer the lower order through to the end of the innings; he received assistance from Iain Mitchell and Harry Jones with 11 each. However at the tea interval there must have been fears that the total would not be sufficient against a free scoring Welsh Asian team.

When the Welsh Asians batted, they too struggled to make headway against the bowling but did have the wherewithal to keep up with the required run rate. And even when Tom Jones made inroads into their batting with 5 for 30 and John Kenchington bowled 10 over’s for 12 runs and 1 wicket a close finish was always on the cards.

In the end, the Welsh Asians could not come to terms with the spin bowling introduced late in the innings by Brecon of James Hudson and Matt Williams and failed just to gather the runs required falling 12 runs short when bowled out with 2 over’s remaining. The Brecon team can be proud of a committed all round effort in the field to defend what in the end proved only just an adequate target.

Away at Monmouth the 2nd team recorded a comfortable 93 run win set up by an excellent batting performance. Mark Waldeck led the way with the bat with 75 runs and along the way he enjoyed partnerships of 63 runs with Ben Kenchington (37) and 40 runs with Terry Dickson (67no). On Waldeck’s dismissal, Terry Dickson led the innings forward, the feature of his innings was the running between the wickets and with Ryan Morgan (21no) added 40 which included 2 all run fours.

The Brecon total of 213 for 3 was far beyond Monmouth on the day and whilst their innings lasted the full 40 over’s they never mounted a challenge and ended on 120 for 9.

The main wicket takers were Derek Osborne (3 for 13), Ryan Morgan (2 for 5), John Cook (2 for 13) and with Finn Starkey bowling an excellent spell taking 1 for 13 from his 8 over’s the victory was never really in doubt. The fielding was also of a good standard highlighted by Derek Osborne with two catches and a run out which helped to keep a lid on the Monmouth innings.