AN excellent unbroken second wicket stand of 123 by Dave Lethaby and Stuart Tudball gave Minehead a nine wicket victory over visitors Lydford with just one over to go.

Lydford, batting first, started at a cracking pace, but having removed opener Michael Foote in the eighth over Minehead's opening bowlers, despite being without their main strike bowler, bowled line and length and tied down Lydford's most prolific scorer John Barnes until he lost his patience and was bowled for 43 in the 20th over by an excellent delivery by Dave Veale. From then on Lydford's batsmen never got on top of the bowling and allowed Veale to bowl his 15 overs for just 37 whilst taking three vital wickets and even skipper Geoff Murrell returned with figures of 2 for 30 with his spinners.

However, Simon Foote and Will Foote did put a little urgency into the last five overs by adding 35 to give Lydford a total of 160-6 at the end of their 45 overs.

In reply, Minehead started slowly and when they tried to quicken the pace lost one of their openers as he was caught at deep square leg in the 15th over with the score on 38.

Then Stuart Tudball joined Dave Lethaby at the crease and after many steady overs still required 80 runs with only 15 overs to go, due to the accurate bowling of Will Foote, who bowled his first 11 overs for just 18 runs.

Then Tudball started to attack the bowling with Lethaby continuing to push the singles to give Tudball the bowling. By the end of the 44th over Lethaby hit the winning run, having batted throughout the innings for 70 and Tudball all but caught him up with 62 giving Minehead a convincing win by nine wickets.

Lydford: 160-6 (J Barnes 43, M James 36, S Foote 28 no, D Veale 3-37, G Murrell 2-30).

Minehead: 161-1 (D Lethaby 70 no, S Tudball 62 no).

Points: Minehead 23 Lydford 5.