CLEOBURY Mortimer raised a glass or two to old friends Knighton while celebrating their own victory over promotion rivals Ross-on-Wye.

Ed Kemp’s depleted side leapfrogged Ross into second spot courtesy of a nine-wicket demolition job at The Cricket Pitch.

The significance of that result was then doubled by relegation-threatened Knighton-on-Teme turning the form book upside down by toppling leaders Canon Frome, who visit Cleobury in a top-two showdown on Saturday (1pm).

Kemp, who was unavailable for the Ross encounter, said: “We owe Knighton a thank you. I text Rob (James, Knighton captain) on Saturday morning asking him to keep me updated and at 6 o’clock he replied saying he had a present for me.

“Everything seemed to go against us the previous weekend. We were called off while in a strong position and Ross-on-Wye and Canon Frome got big points. This time everything fell our way, which was nice.”

Ross won the toss and opted to bat but were soon on the back foot as Kieran Hall (4-40) and Dave Shorter (2-22) got stuck into the top end.

Toby Hiram (41), Jack Donovan (22) and Jim Lewis (24) put up some fight but Sam Evans (3-24) saw off the tail-end to limit Ross to 112 all out.

Evans (22) struck four boundaries before succumbing to a Hiram (1-43) delivery but it made little difference as Hall (33*) and James Manley (52*) stayed unbeaten and lashed beyond the rope on 13 more occasions to bring up 115 for one from less than 20 overs.

“The boys were very happy,” said Kemp. “We had to make a lot of changes but still won and won well.”

The success has created a headache, though, with Kemp having several names to select from for this weekend’s crunch encounter against a Canon Frome side smarting from a first defeat of the campaign.

“This will be our toughest game of the season to date,” said Kemp. “We are still learning but have remained unbeaten since our defeat to Knighton near the start.

“Recent results have been a confidence boost, everyone is starting to score runs and a win at the weekend would put us top of the league.

“There will be a bounce-back factor from them, of course. Their form has been very good so far but we keep telling each other we want to go up so we have to be gunning for the win.

“There are a lot of players back from university too so I expect to have more than 11 available this week. It is a nice problem to have, you’re picking from a good pool of lads who are playing with belief, not only in themselves but in each other as well.

“We are still missing Ben Griffiths but I think that’s the only absence and we have a very good squad. It will be a tough choice, certainly.”