LECHLADE moved to within one more win of clinching their first ever Glos/Wilts Division title on Saturday with a 74 run win at home to Chippenham.

The Manor Ground men now lead the division by 35 points with two games to play following second placed Rockhampton crashing to a surprise defeat at bottom of the table Chipping Sodbury.

Lechlade, having won the toss and electing to bat first, got off to a great start with Sam Burdock and Paul Godding putting together a 91-run opening partnership before the latter was caught by Michael Hunter off the bowling of Tom Young in the 23rd over for 55.

With a good foundation Brad Dial went to the wicket knowing he had the freedom to play shots early on and was soon into his groove and moving the score on quickly.

Burdock settled into the anchor role and fed the strike to the South African under 19s international as much as possible.

The opener brought up his half century off 98 balls and Dial his shortly afterwards off 44 balls as the pair built the Lechlade total.

Dial then hit the accelerator bringing his century up 24 balls later and it looked like both batsmen would finish unbeaten.

As Burdock approached his century Dial did his best to give his partner the opportunity to complete his maiden league century and was stumped by Cookson for 144 in the last over looking for a quick single.

Joe Breet came to the wicket with three balls to go and with Burdock on 98, the skipper took a single of his first ball to put his opener on strike.

Burdock then also took a single off the next ball to leave him stranded on 99 at the close of the innings. Burdock and Dial had shared in a 221 partnership with Dial scoring fourteen fours and seven sixes in his 89 ball innings as Lechlade set the visitors a target of 319 to win.

Chippenham’s innings got off to steady start and they had taken the score to 92-2 at the drinks break which was par with the Lechlade innings at that point but they lacked the acceleration after the break and despite an impressive knock of 70 from Tom Young and 51 from Aaron Merryweather the visitors finished well short of the target set on 244-6.

Lechlade coach Luke Sellers said: “The lads deserved the win, it would have been easy for us to have eased up with the runs on the board but we kept to task.”