Minor Counties Championship Round Up

Richard Bates celebrated a treasured hat-trick as Wiltshire launched their Minor Counties championship programme with a 30-run victory over Wales at Westbury.

The 28-year-old Chippenham allrounder starred with both bat and ball to dominate Wiltshire's one-innings triumph. First he topscored with 55 of Wiltshire's 183 all out off 67 overs, getting his head down to salvage the innings from 71 for five. Ex-Durham man Jason Searle also chipped in a useful 39 as the last three wickets yielded 80 priceless runs.

Wales, left only 50 overs to chase 184, laid a solid platform in reaching 94 for two, but Bates then intervened to produce career best figures of seven for 38 off 14.2 overs.

He finished off the Wales innings by having Phil George stumped off the last ball of the 46th over, and then removing both Wales skipper Colin Metson and Jonathan Davies with the first two deliveries of the 48th.

Elsewhere Nick Folland compiled the 19th championship century of his Minor Counties career in Devon's drawn game with Dorset at Torquay. Folland is now less than 600 runs away from scaling the milestone of 10,000 championship runs.

Minor Counties Championship
Westbury: Wiltshire 183 (RJ Bates 55, DS Harrison 4-54) Wales 153 (RJ Bates 7-38 inc. hat-trick) Wiltshire (16) beat Wales (5) by 30 runs
Finchampstead: Hereford 223 (NW Round 63 not, NA Fusedale 5-55) Berks 52-0. Match Drawn. Berks 5 Hereford 5
Torquay: Devon 183-7 (NA Folland 101 not) Dorset 106-1 (M Swarbrick 50 not) Match Drawn. Devon 5 Dorset 5
Sleaford: Lincs v Beds. Abandoned without a ball bowled. Lincs 5 Beds 5.