On a bright but windy Sunday Somerset Development hosted Gloucestershire Cricket Foundation S9 Development team at the beautiful Ilton Cricket Club. 

Somerset won the toss and chose to Bat first, aiming to put a strong total on the board. It was however Gloucestershire who hit on the attack first removing Dexter Adams after looking dangerous from the start, the score reaching 12. 

Mark Lyons and Wilf Stirzaker then tried to settle the ship and helped to to begin putting runs on the board. 62 runs up Somerset lost their next wicket with Wilf being run out. 

A brief but strong cameo from Ben Hallows came before Paul Lewis replaced him in the middle.

It wasn’t long before Mark Lyons was removed after showing some good intent and Paul was joined by Jacob Lunn. Jacob then began racking the runs up for Somerset, while Paul held his end. Jacob then was bowled just short of his 50, finishing on 43 in the 28th over. The score reaching a strong 165-6 at this point. Connor Hyde and George Fox-Reid saw out the end of the game and Somerset finished on 167-6 in the 30 overs. 

Somerset knew now was the time to defend the total they had worked hard to put on the board and some good bowling from Mark Lyons taking a strong caught and bowled to remove the Gloucestershire captain, was the perfect answer to some strong batting which had already taken the score to 23. 

With the score board ticking along Somerset knew they needed to do something to shutdown the run rate and it was the combined bowling of Jacob Lunn (1-14) and Paul Lewis (1-24) who across 12 overs slowed the run rate down and put the pressure on the Gloucestershire side. 

The pace bowling from Charlie May who took 2 strong wickets in just 3 overs and Colin Hancock taking 2 wickets with the last 3 balls of the game, helped to see Somerset across the line. Gloucestershire finishing on 126-7 and Somerset completing the game with a 41 run win.