BERKSHIRE heated up their bid to win the Unicorns Championship Western Division title with an excellent six-wicket win over previously unbeaten Shropshire at a sun-kissed Shifnal, writes Dave Wright.

After taking a first-innings lead of 103, they dismissed their hosts for 193 in their second innings, leaving them needing 91 to win.

They lost Waqas Hussain for seven, Richard Morris for 28 and James Morris for a second-ball duck – all to lbw decisions with Alex Wyatt the bowler.

Ollie Wilkin was bowled by former Yorkshire and Derbyshire spinner David Wainwright for 11 and Berkshire were 60-4.

However, there were no more alarm bells with Finchampstead duo Andy Rishton (26) and Billy Rogers (20) guiding their side home on the stroke of the lunch interval on Tuesday.

In another very solid team performance, Berkshire bowled out their hosts for 209 on Sunday with Matt Carter taking 4-42, Tom Nugent 3-74, Chris Peploe 2-46 and Ali Raja 1-28.

Berkshire lost their first four wickets for 80 before James Morris and Rishton lifted the total to 134.

But in the final session on day one, the skipper fell for 35, Stewart Davison for a duck and Carter for one, with Alex Wyatt the chief destroyer.

At the start of the second day, the game looked fairly evenly balanced, but that all changed on Monday morning as Rishton and Peploe flew out of the blocks, taking the total from 143-7 to 250 in 32 overs, their partnership of 110 coming to an end when Peploe was adjudged lbw for 69, which came off 91 balls and contained four 6s and three 4s.

Rishton and Tom Nugent (pictured right) added another 46 runs in 13 overs before Rishton was also lbw on 92, having faced 214 balls in 239 minutes with just six of them making their way to the boundary ropes.

Ali Raja was run out for six off the penultimate ball of the final over and, with Nugent 17 not out, the final total of 312 meant a very useful lead of 103.

Berkshire continued to dominate the day and quickly made inroads into Shropshire’s second innings.

Nugent was first to strike and when Waqas Hussain was introduced into the attack the Slough player struck twice in his first over, leaving the hosts shaking on 28-3.

The remaining batsmen did offer some resistance but six wickets went down before wiping out their deficit and they finished the day on 146-6.

On the hottest day of the season so far, Shropshire were eventually all out for 193 on Tuesday morning, with Nugent returning figures of 15-2-59-4, Peploe 22-4-46-3, Carter 21.5-9-35-1 and Hussain 8-0-25-2.

Berkshire went on to secure victory in the 19th over, taking 74 minutes to reach their target.

It was their third win in four games with two fixtures remaining, the next being away to Cornwall – who thrashed Dorset by an innings and 15 runs this week – starting on July 30.

Those results left Cornwall top of the table, just one point ahead of Berkshire with Shropshire dropping to third.