MALMESBURY took full advantage of Wootton Bassett’s defeat to Swindon Civil Service to climb to the top of the Wiltshire County League.

The Worthys’ side headed to out-of-sorts Hinton Charterhouse and set about smashing their hosts around the park with Malmesbury openers’ Jack Ward and George Royle piling on 240 for the opening wicket before the former was dismissed three short of his century.

Marcus Bond quickly followed Ward back to the pavilion before Royle was dismissed for 117 as Malmesbury went post 309-4.

The early season leaders’ reply was quickly in trouble as Stuart McNeil and Josh Langley claimed the wickets of the Hinton opening duo leave them 13-2.

Peter Borton and Ben Watkinson provided the hosts with some much needed resistance with scores of 61 and 51 not out respectively but Malmesbury restricted them to 214-5 to claim a 95-run success and take a one-point lead at the top of the table.

Urchfont will be pleased that they managed to scrape a tie in their clash with Beanacre and Melksham.

Awaiz Ahmed’s half-century for Swindon Nalgo was in vain as they suffered a 16-run loss at Bradford-on-Avon.

Having dismissed the hosts for 140 with Prashant Joshi taking 5-32, the visitors were then skittled for 124.

Adam Tooze ripped through Bear Flat as Swindon United Churches maintained their lead at the top of Division Two.

Having posted 201-9 from their 45 overs with Danny Hunt top scoring with 72, Bear Flat was ripped out for 49 as Tooze took 6-27.