TENBURY WELLS continued their potentially title-winning form with a five-wicket win against Redditch 3rd.

The leaders left Studley Sports and Social Club with 20 points and lead Hallow by 21 points in the Worcestershire Division Five with West Malvern, their closest challengers, a further point behind.

Redditch won the toss and batted first, and it looked like they would be posting a serious test for the visitors as Faizan Ahmed made 79.

The off-spin of Henry Anton finally removed Ahmed and skipper Zack Yarranton admitted that had been crucial to the outcome.

“Ahmed came out flying, hitting a couple of fours then a six off me which no-one else has done this season so I brought on Henry and it seemed to be a pitch more suited to a slower pace. He bowled tight and managed to get the opener.

“I was starting to think it was a potential banana skin for us. I went there not expecting them to have the strongest of teams and that they would have a bowl and make a game of it but they threw us the ball.

“But when we managed to get Ahmed out, although they had some capable players down the order, the scoring rate slowed.”

Matt Jones with 5-32 ensured that Redditch’s middle-order was unable to fire but Joshua Manzur made 35 and shared in a frustrating last-wicket stand which pushed the score much closer to 200 than Yarranton hoped, until the skipper himself returned to finally end Manzur’s resistance, leaving the hosts 196 all out.

Tenbury were missing regular opener Aaron Morris and pushed Anton in first, only for him to go in the opening over to Adam Freeman.

But Yarranton said despite that early setback there were really few alarms after that as Andrew Adams made 52, Paul Higgins 27 and Tom Rawlings 42.

“Losing Henry put the pressure on but it was a decent track and a lightning fast outfield so everything that go through, there was no chasing.

“Two more wins should put us somewhere near – we are on a decent winning run and play West Malvern in a fortnight with the next two games at home. Hopefully we can keep the winning form going.”

It was a good day all round as Tenbury 2nd crushed Redditch 4th by nine wickets.

The visitors were bowled out for 130 and Ben Thompson replied with an unbeaten 62 and Harib 57 as they cruised home inside 24 overs.