West of England Premier League side Goatacre fall two short of 500 in 250-run win over Stroud

The Wiltshire side finished on 498 for six from their 50 overs after hundreds from opener Jack Haines and Toby Horton in the middle order before bowling out their opponents for 248

Goatacre fell two short of an unprecedented 500 as they beat fellow West of England Premier League (WEPL) side Stroud by 250 runs on Saturday.

The hosts won the toss and elected to bat first, a decision which was vindicated when they posted 498 for six, their highest ever total, from their 50 overs, largely thanks to Toby Horton's 167 and 157 from opener Jack Haines.

Stroud were then bowled out for 248, with Joseph King taking four wickets for 62 from his 8.4 overs for a side that has scored 838 runs in their last 90 overs of batting after scoring 340 for six in their abandoned match against Burbage in The Cricketer's National Village Cup.

Goatacre captain Ed Wilkins said: "I had actually gone out for the toss not knowing whether to bat or bowl if we won the toss because we had had a lot of rain about over the previous two days and the wicket had been under covers.

"I decided in the end to bat and obviously it turned out to be a pretty good decision. There were some wet patches on the wicket and even now I would say the wicket wasn’t a great one but the guys batted absolutely superbly."

Most of Goatacre's work was done by Haines and Horton, who was playing his maiden first-team game of the season, and Wilkins reserved special praise for the duo.

"Jack’s played for Goatacre his whole life, he has recently got in to the Wiltshire Minor Counties team. He has always been a destructive batsman.

"He can hit the ball a long way but generally he doesn’t tend to go on and hit these big scores. He’ll get a lot of sixties and seventies, but he seems to have matured over the last couple of years, and on Saturday from ball one he hit some big balls and he was just non-stop.

"Toby misses quite a few games through work commitments, he plays a bit of 2s cricket but he just came in and it was like he had been playing every day, he looked in great form. He started by just playing normal good shots and then towards the end he was just hitting the ball to all parts."

After the brute force on display from the Goatacre pair came the guile of Bradley Dawson, the brother of England international Liam who scored 61 on the day, and Wilkins believes he added diversity to the side in their innings.

"Brad plays Minor Counties as well for Wiltshire, but he is a bit different. He can play all the ramp shots and the reverse sweeps and the paddles.

"He went in and did that, so his innings was a completely different innings to Jack and Toby.

"The Stroud bowlers and fielders were all expecting them to go out and whack it and then Brad starts paddling it and reverse sweeping it for four and six."

However, it was the captain himself who was in the middle when his side required 24 from the final over to bring up 500. Having hit a two sixes and a four during the over, Wilkins was in confident mood but with missed the last ball with three needed, managing just a leg-bye off the final delivery.

"We scored 498 but walking off the feeling for me personally was being more gutted than anything else because I hadn’t scored the three to get us to the 500.

"It is safe to say the lads let me know about it afterwards and I got fined heavily for it! It is strange saying it but we are actually really disappointed we didn’t get that 500 in the end. 

"It has never crossed our mind before. We do have a small ground and we do have some good players that can hit the ball a long way.

"To get to 400 would have been a great effort but to get so close to the 500 was surreal really. It was a great effort from the boys."

Despite missing out on the milestone this time around, Wilkins challenged his side to achieve it in the future and end the season with some trophies under their belt.

"The club has a good name, we play at a decent standard, we have had good runs in the National Village competitions.

"For us it is a great achievement and something we would never have got close to before and we are just going to look to push on from it really.

"Hopefully we can go on and challenge for the league and win that and also go far in the National Village competition, but also set the target of also maybe one day getting that 500."