WILTSHIRE slipped to a heavy home defeat at the hands of Berkshire in their second Unicorns Championship Western Division match of the summer this afternoon.

On Sunday, Berkshire won the toss at Corsham and chose to bat but were soon in trouble at 11-3, thanks largely to the efforts of against Tahir Afridi and Andy Carroll.

Aided by some dropped catches, they recovered to 273 all out, with James Morris scoring 80 and Chris Peploe 59.

For Wiltshire, Afridi took 4-52, Ed Young 3-47 and Joe King 2-56. In reply, by close of the first day Wiltshire had reached 107-4.

The first hour of the second day saw Berkshire take control as Wiltshire collapsed in dramatic fashion to 120-9 before finally being dismissed for 150, giving Berkshire a first innings lead of 123.

Luke De Souza scored 28, Michael Coles 39 and Tahir Afridi 22 not out whilst Tom Nugent took 5-52 and Matt Carter 4-38.

Berkshire increased their lead with a quick opening partnership of 69 before they lost nine wickets for 108.

Then they recovered with a 10th wicket partnership of 82 between Nugent (70*) and A A Raja (8) before they were all out for 259, leaving Wiltshire 20 overs and all of Tuesday to score 383 to win.

Young took 6-87.

By close of the second day, they had reached 48 for the loss of De Souza (23) off the last ball of the day. And Wiltshire efforts again crumbled as they were skittled for 206, Mike Reynolds scoring 37 before there was a last-wicket stand of 60 between man-of-the-match Carroll (33) and Joe King (23*).

Berkshire’s Peploe took 4-66 and there were twi wickets each for Nugent and Carter Wiltshire's will go looking to bounce back when they travel to take on Cornwall on July 5-7 at Grampound Road