WILTSHIRE warmed up for Sunday's Minor Counties Knockout Trophy semi-final with a nine wicket championship win over Shropshire on Tuesday.

Shropshire went into the match at Corsham in second place in the Western Division and unbeaten all season but an unbeaten century by James Hibberd helped the hosts to a morale boosting victory.

The result leaves Wiltshire going into the semi-final against Northumberland at Westbury full of confidence, with the winners of Sunday's match sealing a place at Lord's in the final against either Berkshire or Suffolk on September 6.

Jason Searle, Wiltshire's vice-captain, and stand-in skipper for the win over Shropshire, due to Russell Rowe's illness, believes Sunday could be one of the biggest days of a lot of his players' careers.

He said: "Obviously with a Lord's final awaiting the winners, it is going to be a massive game that both teams desperately want to win.

"Most of our players will never have played at Lord's so it would be a big occasion if we could get there.

"We will have to pick out strongest team and just hope our best efforts are enough. This victory should give us a lot of confidence."

The county side have already played at a Test venue this season, losing to Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in the first round of the C and G trophy, but Searle was unavailable for the match.

He said: "It was a big disappointment for me even though I had played there before with Durham, but hopefully we can get to Lord's to make up for it.

"We will have to try and forget the importance there is in the match though or else players might allow the pressure to get to them."

Former England all-rounder Richard Illingworth, has been included in Sunday's squad after missing most of the season because of umpiring commitments, while big hitter Steve Perrin also comes back into contention along with Chippenham's Richard Bates.

After winning the toss on Sunday, Wiltshire elected to bat and produced an impressive display of batting to reach 347-7 in their 90 overs.

Kevin Blackburn (60) and Baqar Rizvi (53) put on 104 for the third wicket and then Hibberd took over, scoring 118 not out.

Other notable contributors were Michael Coles (23), Richard Foley, (23) and Neil Shardlow (26 not out).

In reply, Shropshire were 10 for no wicket when rain stopped play for the day.

On a rain-disrupted second day, Wiltshire bowled Shropshire out for 137. Searle finished with figures of 3-12 while Richard Bedbrook took 2-32 and Richard Foley 2-5.

Following on 210 runs behind, Shropshire reached 26-3 by the end of the second day. After a flurry of early wickets on Tuesday morning left the visitors 118-6, their tail-end dug in and threatened to save the game.

With John Whitney, batting at nine, leading the charge, Wiltshire struggled to take the final few wickets as time ticked away.

Eventually Shardlow stumped Whitney off the bowling of Searle for 51 and it signalled the start of the end as they were all out for 222.

Searle took 4-91 and Coles took the final two wickets for no runs.

Needing just 14 runs to win, Wiltshire scored them in 13 balls for the loss of Kevin Blackburn (12) to seal a nine-wicket win.

Sunday's semi-final takes place at Westbury's Leighton Green ground, starting at 11.30am.

Wiltshire squad for Sunday: Russell Rowe (South Wilts) (captain), Jason Searle (Chippenham) (vice-captain), Richard Bates (Chippenham), Richard Bedbrook (Beckenham), Kevin Blackburn (Clifton/Optimists), Chris Budd (Thornbury), Michael Coles (Bridgwater), James Hibberd (Calmore Sports), Richard Illingworth (Barnt Green), Kevin Nash (Bashley), Steve Perrin (Corsham), Baqar Rizvi (Spencer), Neil Shardlow (Corsham).