WET weather prevented Wiltshire from getting their Unicorns Championship campaign off to a winning start as they were frustrated by rain at Oxfordshire.

Ed Young’s side had begun in positive fashion at Great & Little Tew, with James Arney taking 4-17 and Jake Goodwin 3-17 to dismiss the hosts for 95 in their first innings on Sunday.

The Wiltshire reply did not get off to the best of starts as they found themselves in trouble at 52-5 but Jake Lintott and Ashur Morrison guided them to 91-5 at the end of a rain-curtailed first day.

However, no more play was possible from there and the match was eventually abandoned as a draw before midday on Tuesday’s third day.

Although disappointed by the lack of result and time in the middle, team manager Neil Shardlow does not think the opening match will have too much bearing on Wiltshire’s fortunes in the long term.

“We played fairly well on Sunday and we had a pretty good handle on things but sadly, it wasn’t to be,” said Shardlow.

“Because of the weather, there was simply no way we could have got back out there, it’s very frustrating. We knew the forecast was bad for Monday and Tuesday but we didn’t know it would be this bad.

“I don’t think it will affect the league table too much, I think it will be the same case with the weather everywhere.

“We’ve got four points for our bowling and four points for the draw, so we’ve finished with eight points to Oxfordshire’s six and I think that’s the sort of thing we’ll see from most games.”

The performances of Wiltshire’s bowlers was the obvious highlight for Shardlow in what was a forgettable match overall, with their early efforts at least setting up the chance for a possible victory.

“We carried on from where we were last year with our bowling. There was a good partnership first up between James Arney and Tahir Afridi and then they received good support from everyone else,” said Shardlow.

“Jake Goodwin, Mike Reynolds, Jake Lintott and Joe King all bowled well as well, and we kept putting the ball in the right areas.

“We wanted to try to get level with them once we did bat on that first day but then we didn’t get the chance to pull away from them.

“We would have preferred to get level no worse than three down but we had a bit of a wobble but then we had the foundations of a really good partnership between Ashur Morrison and Jake Lintott.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to push on after that.”

Wiltshire resume their campaign when they host Dorset at Corsham from Sunday, June 18.