CINDERFORD chased down a target of 183 with nearly seven overs to spare to beat Charlton Kings Seconds.

The win in the second against third encounter narrowed the gap with the Cheltenham side to 14 points in Division Four of the Gloucestershire Cricket League.

After the visitors elected to bat, Andy Beaven and Mark House opened with a maiden each.

House then struck with a wicket maiden bowling Josh Gordon with the second ball of the fourth over to make it 9/1.

Steve Skelton was on target to run out Chris Burrow after the opening ball of the 10th from House to make it 30/2.

House then took the return from Ali Parker with the penultimate delivery of the over to reduce Kings to 30/3.

Matthew de Klerk had faced only one ball when he was run out from the non-striker’s end by Jack Crook following the first delivery of the 11th from Beaver.

House then caught and bowled Ross Constantine for 35/5 after the first ball of the 14th over.

There was a long wait for the next wicket as a partnership between Ryan Attwood and Ben Markwick added 93 to the Charlton Kings score.

It was broken by Liam Cottrell who tempted Attwood to go high with the fourth ball of the 32nd over, only for it to be caught by Eddie Ruck for 133/6.

Markwick went with 155 on the board, going leg before to Mark Roberts on the first delivery of the 37th.

Roberts bookended the over with another wicket as Charlie Payne went to a catch by Safseer Puthuparambil which made it 157/8.

Charlton Kings added another 26 without loss to close on 183/8.

House finished on 3-7 with half of his eight overs being maidens.

Roberts returned 2-36 off his seven overs and Liam Cottrell 1-31 off four.

The other Cinderford bowlers in action were Beavan, Puthuparambil and Mitchell Scorer.

Openers Ruck and Scorer put Cinderford on the path to victory with 59 and 48 respectively.

Ruck was trapped leg before by Joshua Odam and Scorer was caught off the same bowler.

A 30 from Dan Kibble and 29 from House saw Cinderford claim an eight-wicket win with 186/2 off 33.4 overs.

Cinderford Seconds also claimed a win after bowling Westbury Thirds for 89 in Division 9A.

Nathan Francis and Chris Roberts took three wickets each after Westbury decided to bat.

The only home batsman to put up much resistance was Oliver Jelfs in the middle of the order who hit 33.

He was caught off the bowling of Nathan Francis who also bowled Rich McKenzie.

Francis also claimed the wicket of George Nice to a catch.

Roberts bowled Spencer Bluntish, Geraint Williams and Lewis Sheppard for a total of nine.

Keith Smith bowled opener Scott Reed for eight and had Gary Hamilton leg before for five.

Craig Kibble claimed a wicket to a stumping and Ethan Kibble saw one of his deliveries caught by Scott Jenkins to dismiss Fletcher Young.

Westbury were 89 all out in 27.1 overs.

William Cook was 37 not out as Cinderford made 90/6.

Rich McKenzie claimed three wickets and there were one each for Harry Hyatt, George Nice and Scott Reed.