They were only an over out after rolling City for 156 and reaching 6-158 in reply in the 31st over.

Skipper Tim Kensell guided them to victory with an unbeaten 41 to go with his 2-26 with the ball.

He’d won the toss and sent City in.

“It was always going to be difficult to score a lot of runs. The outfield was slow and the pitch was slow,” he said.

“We thought we’d be better off chasing.”

It was also going to only get hotter in the afternoon – better to be batting than out in the field.

City made a promising start to its innings with openers Scott de Weymarn and Chris Langston putting on 48 for the first wicket.

Langston and Sean Hancock (11) added 28 for the second, and at 2-114 they were looking in good shape and at making around 180.

But when Adam Penman picked up Langston caught and bowled for 55, City lost its  way a bit, with only Dan Lawrence (22) in the last six reaching double figures.

It was a good cameo from him and gave City a chance of getting near the 160 skipper Dan Whale had been looking at at the start of the day and, with four of their top five out, he was pretty happy with the way they batted – at least the top order.

“Langsto (Langston) stepped up and batted well. Both openers did. 

“They got us through that tough early period,” he said.

“We probably didn’t capitalise as well as we should have.”

Penman was a big part of the reason they didn’t. He cleaned up the middle order, snaring 5-33.

“Adam bowled well – so did young Deklan Baker,” Kensell said.

Baker claimed the early scalps and finished with 2-18 from his eight.

Kensell was happy with the bowling effort keeping them to 150, especially after they were about 0-50.

It equated to about four runs an over, which was pretty 

comfortable.

They got off to a similar start to City, not losing their first wicket until 44.

Harrison Kelly scored most of those but was out a few runs later for 33 and at 2-51 Wests needed someone to dig in.

Dan Hartley (37) did that. He and James Dunn put on 27 before Kensell joined him, and took away any slim hopes City might have had.

“We weren’t tight enough early on,” Whale said.

They gave West too many scoring balls.

“A bit of short stuff and a few extras hurt us,” he said.

“But Jack McVey (2-26) was again outstanding.

“He bowled with good pace and good movement and got us back in the game after they’d got a good start.”