A superb innings of 142 not out from Andrew Jones and an excellent innings of 72 from Greg Fury set up an 84 run win for Abergavenny over Croesyceiliog on Saturday.

Played at Avenue Rd, Abergavenny won the toss and batted first for only the third time this season.

After James Schofield fell cheaply with the score on 29, Jones and Fury combined for a superb partnership of 146.

The pair began steadily and built a solid platform, before accelerating the score after the drinks break, with both players striking sumptuous straight sixes.

Fury was finally caught at deep backward square leg in trying to raise the scoring rate further, bringing his excellent innings to an end.

Dan Hartland joined Jones at the crease and was positive from the outset, playing some lovely shots. 

He made 34 off just 27 balls out of a partnership of 54, and again showed his talent in what has been a good debut season for the youngster.

That was the last wicket to fall in the innings as Steve Brown joined Jones for the final overs, and together they put on 70 for the fourth wicket.

Brown making 24 off 22 balls and finishing the innings with a flourish, reverse sweeping a four from the final ball.

However, the undoubted star of the innings was Jones, as he showed his class and gave a lesson in how to construct a one-day innings.

He hit his 100 in decent time, before opening his shoulders in the final overs to finish with 142 from 160 balls, as Abergavenny closed on 299-3 from their 50 overs

In the rare position of having runs on the board, the bowlers were in an excellent position to put Croesyceiliog under pressure from the start.

However, skipper Schofield struggled with his initial fields, and on a track that was still excellent for batting, Croesy made an assured start before Nathan Byrne made the first breakthrough, bowling Michael Beacham with a lovely delivery that swung away and nipped back to bowl the Croesy skipper for 20.

Despite that success, Byrne's initial spell was not quite up to his usual high standard and he was replaced by Dave Windross at the brook end.

With Jon Denning bowling some good opening overs at the other end, beating the left hander regularly, the pressure gradually told and Windross was next to strike, bowling the left hander off an inside edge.

Croesyceiliog now had two young lads at the crease, and though they batted very competently, they gradually fell further and further behind the rate as Windross and Andrew Coles bowled very tightly.

The partnership was eventually ended by a run out as Denning, Schofield and Fury combined to run out Roden for a well made 42.

This brought Baloch to the wicket, who had scored a very streaky 80 against Abergavenny earlier in the season, but, despite carrying a slight injury, was a dangerous striker of the ball. Byrne was reintroduced to the attack and struck with his first ball, yorking Baloch. He bowled an extremely intelligent second spell, demonstrating excellent awareness of what lengths to bowl, and picked up another wicket to an excellent delivery to finish with 3-38 off his 10 overs.

With Coles eventually rewarded for a good 10-over spell, it was now a matter of time before Abergavenny wrapped up the win - it was simply a question of how many wickets they could take.

Windross picked up another wicket to end with 2-47, and Schofield was controversially introduced into the attack to try and clean up the tail.

He picked up 2-12, but despite his best efforts, and a juggling of bowling resources, Abergavenny couldn't quite take the final wicket and Croesyceiliog finished on 215-9 from their 50 overs.

Another excellent performance from Abergavenny, as this team continues to grow and are developing an excellent spirit after shrugging off various setbacks in the early part of the season.

Aber have leaped from twelfth to eighth in the table with these two wins, and now have their sights set on two winnable games against Pentyrch and Penarth.