LLANARTH CC welcomed Pontypridd, who were without a defeat since 2013, to a glorious sun-soaked LCG, and systematically set about ending their impressive winning streak.

Skipper Heath won the toss and elected to bat, on a strip that had a tinge of greenness, confident that his batsmen could set a decent total.

From early on the pitch played low, making timing difficult and thus run scoring was at a premium. The Pontypridd bowlers stuck to a good line and length, backed up by good positive fielding and they were rewarded with the wickets of Lomax and Dewfield, both lbw. Baxter (46) and Nowell (37) battled through to drinks at 50-2 before trying to accelerate the scoring rate.

The pressure mounted as the visitors continued to bowl well and kept a tight fielding circle, so Nowell decided to throw the kitchen sink at anything with a semblance of width and profited with a handful of valuable boundaries.

Baxter fell attempting a slog and after Butler crunched his first delivery in Llanarth colours to the boundary he and Nowell were soon back in the pavilion too at 114-5. The lower order added some useful runs in the final few overs to lift the final total to 142-9, a pretty handy one given the difficult scoring conditions, and the fact that Llanarth had a full strength bowling line-up.

After a super tea the Trees needed to make an early statement of intent and Banaras (3-18) provided one instantly when trapping Mehtab lbw with the first ball of the innings. He struck in his second and third overs too to put Llanarth firmly in the driving seat as the reply slipped to 9-3. Edwards (33) and Mudassar (16) set about repairing the early damage and despite having their outside edges repeatedly beaten by Banaras and Lomax the partnership was starting to get annoying.

It took the golden arm of Ed James to break it, winning an lbw so plumb that the batsman walked before seeing the finger go up and when Johnson ended Edwards vigil, via a sharp catch by Heath, the Trees were well on top.

Smart and Riaz kept the score ticking over slowly in the face of some excellent spin from Powell (2-20), perhaps working towards a position where they could have a final assault on the target. Thirty-eight runs were required from five overs, but three excellent overs only allowed 11 runs to be added and the decent crowd were biting their nails at the prospect of a close finish. However for reasons best known to himself Smart decided to not to "go for it" and played out a Johnson maiden for the penultimate over. A few moments later the innings closed with a whimper, surprising for a team on such a long winning streak, at 118-7 to leave Llanarth victors by 24 runs.