WILTSHIRE travelled home over the Severn Bridge frustrated by the weather and their opponent’s tactics as their latest Western Division clash against Wales ended in a draw.

With the full second day’s play washed out by the rain, the two teams decided to try to manufacture a positive result on day three at Pontarddulais.

Wiltshire declared their first innings at 100-6 - still 142 runs in arrears of Wales’ total - in the understanding that the home side would then set them an achievable target, while still having plenty of time to bowl them out.

However, Wales actually put on 191-5 before they finally did declare, setting Michael Coles’ men a target of 334 to win.

Wiltshire knew they were never likely to chase that down and were only on 194-7 by the time the match came to a close.

Skipper Coles top-scored with 45, while Ed Young, Ed Kilbee and the unbeaten Ashur Morrison all made starts, with Richard Edwards (5-49) leading Wales’ charge with the ball.

Batsman Neil Clark said: “The whole day on Monday was rained off so we declared overnight going into the final day trying to force a result.

“We had a mutual agreement to try and get a result, with both teams still capable of winning. They’d agreed to set us a target of 280 but they went on to 330.

“We still had 65 overs to bat but they put everyone on the boundary looking to stop us scoring. If someone scored a four or a six someone else would go back and we just realised we weren’t going to be able to win and settled for the draw.

“It was frustrating as it just didn’t stop raining, even on Tuesday it rained when the forecast said it shouldn’t have.

“After bowling them out on the first day we felt we could have got something out of the game if there’d been play on the full three days.”

The match had started positively for Wiltshire, with Jake Roberts (3-28) and Joe King (3-57) helping restrict Wales to 242 all out. That score was largely down to 81 from Gareth Ansell.

Although the Wiltshire reply did not get off to the best of starts at 18-3, captain Coles hit an unbeaten 39 to help them to 100-6 at the close before the rain set in and a result became highly unlikely.