MINEHEAD kept up their challenge at the top of Division III of the Somerset League with a hard fought victory away at strugglers Mark on Saturday.

After being put into bat on a very slow wicket with little bounce they were indebted to a patient innings of 60 by captain Stuart Tudball, who used all his skill and experience to guide his team towards a challenging total on a difficult wicket, assisted initially by Geoff Murrell, and in the middle part of the innings by Andrew Dyer, who timed the ball sweetly in scoring 26.

However, the Minehead innings came to an abrupt end as they lost their last six wickets for four runs when a total in excess of 180 was looking likely.

The visitors knew that runs would be hard to come by on this slow wicket and they took to the field with a game plan to frustrate the home teams batsmen and they got off to a perfect start when Hurley claimed a wicket in his first over and after nine overs the Mark innings had crawled to 10 runs.

Ranjan however was beginning to threaten with some delightful strokes and he was joined by Mocksey who hit the ball aggressively (26), and at 90 for 4 with 20 overs remaining, the home team looked to be favourites to win the match.

However, the introduction of Joel Baker caused a mini collapse as he took three vital wickets in the late middle order, and the game swung in Minehead's favour and the scoring rate dropped again while wickets began to fall at regular intervals and victory was completed for Minehead when Ranjan was caught attempting to retain the strike in the 43rd over.

Hartgen, Hurley and Baker had all bowled impressive and economic spells for Minehead while Sully took the vital last wicket of Ranjan.

Special mention should be made of Adam Jones, who kept wicket superbly in difficult conditions claiming four catches and effecting an outstanding run out by throwing down the wickets at the bowler's end.

Minehead: 145 (S Tudball 60, A Dyer 26, G Murrell 18, S Ranjan 4-16, N Coleman 4-31).

Mark: 127 (S Ranjan 69, T Mocksey 26, J Baker 3-17, R Hartgen 3-31, D Hurley 2-43).