SWINDON, sponsored by The Ridgeway Hospital, met Chippenham in the county final of the Portman Building Society Under 15s National Club Championship.

The match was played at Chippenham on a wicket which gave a lot of assistance to the home team's four spinners and this proved crucial in deciding the outcome of the match.

Chippenham won the toss and put Swindon in. Captain Marc Williamson and Dom O'Neill got the innings off to a great start with Williamson pulling the second ball of the first over to the boundary for four.

Runs continued to flow against the seamers but when spin was introduced batting became more tricky and the first wicket fell in the ninth over, which Swindon finished on 50 for one.

This brought in Craig Taylor, who is in the middle of a purple patch and was looking forward to taking on the Chippenham attack. However he played and missed at his first ball, and was given out stumped even though the keeper had clearly dropped the ball and already apologised to his bowler for doing so.

Unfortunately the square leg umpire was unsighted and failed to realise that was what had happened.

Understandably Chippenham were delighted and Swindon shocked and thereafter the batsmen lost their focus against some excellent spin bowling, folding to 71 all out, which included five stumpings, the last four all clear cut.

Left arm spinner Liam Dawson, recruited from Goatacre and now on Hampshire's books, finished with four wickets for four runs.

With such a low total off their allotted 20 overs the Swindon bowlers had their work cut out. O'Neill struggled and was well below full pace, but Taylor gave Swindon brief hope with a sharp caught and bowled in the first over.

This brought in Adam Croutear, from All Cannings, who is being coached by Gloucestershire.

He took full advantage of every loose ball, scoring 32 of 37 runs coming off the bat in his stand with Tim Rowson. A stunning catch by Ben Turner ended his innings, but then Tom Bowler from West Swindon joined Rowson and the Chippenham representatives cantered to an eight wicket victory in the thirteenth over. They go on to the next round against the Somerset champions.

Swindon finished as runners-up for the second year in a row and were disappointed at being below par on the day but nevertheless did very well this season with three wins including a very impressive performance in the second round against South Wilts.