FOLLOWING a victory on the opening day at Old Buckenham, Cromer welcomed Swardeston to the Norton Warnes ground. Their 14 points to their visitors' 13 left them second in the Alliance Premier Division, seven points behind defending champions Downham.

FOLLOWING a victory on the opening day at Old Buckenham, Cromer welcomed Swardeston to the Norton Warnes ground. Their 14 points to their visitors' 13 left them second in the Alliance Premier Division, seven points behind defending champions Downham.

Skipper Tom Davies won the toss and elected to bat. Rayno Arendse and Alan Lithins opening the batting and got off to a quick start and put on an opening partnership of 85 off 13 overs.

Overseas player Arendse reached his half-century of 41 balls, but off the next ball he was caught by Cooper off Thelwell for 53.

Lithins was then caught and bowled Murphy for 19, with Cromer on 88.

The rest of the top six batsmen also made contributions - Richard Charlwood 17, Colin Brown 23, Tom Davies 33 and Michael Warnes, who batted 21 overs finishing 45 not out.

In the final cover Peter Gascoyne along with Warnes added 22 runs to leave Swardeston needing 247 to win. Gascoyne finished 12 not out off just four deliveries.

The pick of the Swardeston bowlers were Thelwell and Murphy who ended with figures of 3-54 and 3-68 respectively.

In response, Swardeston were restricted early on by some tight bowling from Warnes and Arendse. Foster was the first wicket to fall, leg before to Arendse.

Overseas player Murphy was dismissed for a duck, again by Arendse, and at the halfway mark Swardeston were 89-4.

Cooper and Goodrum were in the middle and in the 35th over Goodrum was given out lbw to Brown for 39. This ended a partnership of 68 which had given the visitors a good chance of reaching the 90 per cent mark of Cromer's total and a slim chance of even reaching their target.

Cooper was finally out, caught and bowled James Craske with three overs to go. He finished on 72.

In the final overs Peter Thomas guided Swardeston past 90 per cent and he finished 47 not out with Dolding (3) the other not out batsman.

Craske finished with three wickets and Arendse and Brown both took two as Swardeston finished on 229-7 off their 50 overs.