WEPL Somerset Division

North Petherton 322-8 beat Staplegrove 86 by 236 runs

FORMER Somerset all-rounder Ian Blackwell played a starring role with bat and ball as North Petherton thrashed Staplegrove by 236 runs in the WEPL Somerset Division.

Blackwell scored 56 and took 5-17 for Pethy to seal an emphatic win and close the gap on leaders North Perrott to just five points.

Dan Tottle top scored with 71 - which included seven fours and three sixes - while Jacobus Pienaar (69) and Lewis Irish (49), as Pethy amassed 322-8 from their 50 overs.

Ian Bishop (3-50) and Thomas Pantling (3-40) were the pick of the Staplegrove attack with three wickets apiece.

Pethy were asked to bat first and got off to a flying start, as Blackwell and Tottle found the boundary at regular intervals.

The pair took the score to 116 in quick-fire fashion, with Blackwell reaching fifty in the process, before he was dismissed by Pantling for 56 – 52 of which came in boundaries (ten fours and two sixes).

Harry Bowditch (3) fell shortly after for single figures – and the score had moved on to 157 when Tottle was the third man out for a well-made 71.

But Pienaar and Irish picked up where the openers had left off, dispatching the Grove attack to all parts of the ground to take the score past 200.

Pienaar departed for a bludgeoning 69, including ten fours and two sixes, before Irish fell one run short of his own half-century – and some late order hitting from Mike Burns (25) and Lewis Knight (16) fired Pethy to a commanding total.

And the Staplegrove reply never really got off the ground, as Lewis Knight (4-32) tore through the top order to reduce the hosts to 42-5 – and Ian Blackwell followed up with five wickets in seven overs to bowl Staplegrove out inside 27 overs.