WILTSHIRE suffered bitter disappointment in their opening Unicorns County Championship match of the season as they were beaten by eight wickets at Cheshire with a whole day to spare.

After being skittled for just 166 on the opening day of play on Sunday, Ashur Morrison top-scoring with 63 whilst the hosts’ Ash Davis took 7-83, the county side were consummately finished off on Monday at Tattenhall.

Resuming on 252-9, Davis made a late unbeaten 33 whilst Daniel Woods added 36 as Cheshire were bowled out for 303, Jake Lintott helping himself to six wickets.

Any hopes of an unlikely fightback were quickly dashed as Wiltshire were put under the cosh in their second innings, with their first three wickets falling for just 54 runs.

Morrison did his best to steady the ship once again as he weighed in with a knock of 73 whilst Tahir Afridi (53) and Lintott (46) also tried to make a fist of it but the visitors’ second innings ended with them all out for 223.

Cheshire then required little more than an hour to breeze over the line by reaching 98-2.