Coombs Wood 244-9, Barnards Green 246-6.

BARNARDS Green won by three wickets in their Worcestershire Crusader League Division One clash on Saturday.

Coombs Wood, missing skipper James Burgoyne, won the toss and decided to bat first. Despite the seam attack of Williams and Nick Murphy failing to make early inroads, the visitors struggled to gain momentum despite the lighting fast outfield and fantastic wicket.

With the introduction of spin came the first wicket of the day, Mark Venross bowled by the effervescent Andy Ford (5-63) for 12.

Chris Smedley soon got in on the act with Michael Langford well caught by Liam Paddock for 25.

Ford, and accurate and subtle changes of pace from Smedley (4-75), left them precariously placed at 69-7.

But Asif Iqbal strode to the crease and finished with a colossal 133 not out including seven sixes as Wood scored 244-9.

In reply, makeshift opener Smedley joined Williams Snr in the pursuit of a testing target of 245.

Both started well with Williams, in particular, seizing on a number of loose balls from Andrew Farmer and Iqbal to race into the twenties.

Williams fell to a pull shot for 42. George Rhodes was dismissed without troubling the scorers bringing Liam Paddock to the crease to join Smedley.

Unfortunately for the home side this, and the introduction of the economical Venross led to the innings losing momentum. This culminated when Smedley fell to a limp drive for 56.

Phil Harris joined Paddock and had an immediate impact striking a huge maximum and a four before being run out short of his ground for 11.

With 14 overs left the home side now needed over 90 to win with six wickets in hand.

Paddock was snapped up caught off Venross attempting to hit over midwicket for 32 and batting hero Iqbal quickly picked up the wicket of Metcalfe for seven.

Jez Clarke joined wicketkeeper Adam Binks at the crease with seven overs to go and 70 needed for victory.

Binks, who had until this point dealt mainly in singles and twos with a better than run-a- ball strike rate upped the ante with a brace of boundaries off Farmer and Clarke joined the action with two fours off Iqbal in the following over.

With Farmer defending the shorter, straight boundary and three overs to go Binks stroked two straight drives for fours and took 14 from his penultimate over to leave the Green needing 11 runs from two overs.

Sensible running took seven from Iqbal’s final over and with the field up, Binks despatched a Farmer delivery for four to get the home side to the winning post with just three balls to spare.

Clarke scored a brisk and clever 21 and Binks finishing with a clinical 49 no.