BERKSHIRE made it two wins from three Unicorns Championship games by crushing Cheshire by 211 runs at Falkland CC.

The host county controlled most of the three-day game, although the visitors did offer some resistance in their second innings as they faced mission impossible.

Berks were all out for 349 in their first innings with Richard Morris making 69, Chris Peploe 65, Ollie Wilkin 43 and Stewart Davison 41.

Cheshire were then dismissed for 296, the bowling honours going to Peploe with 5-97 off 34.1 overs.

Second time around, Berkshire lost their first six wickets for 110, but seized back the initiative in the opening session of the final day, taking their total to 296-8 off 77 overs and enable stand-in skipper Morris to declare at the lunch interval.

Davison led the way with an excellent 90 not out from 145 balls, hitting a six and 13 fours.

He and Peploe (28) added 56 for the seventh wicket in 12 overs, but that was followed by an even better partnership.

Wicket-keeper Davison and Matt Carter added 75 in just 17 overs before the latter was lbw for 46, which came off 50 balls and contained five boundaries.

With Morris looking to close the innings, Tom Nugent took up the quick-runs challenge, smacking three sixes and a four as he raced to 28 off 30 balls.

He and Davison added a very useful 55 runs off the last seven and a half overs.

Chester were set a challenging target of 351 to win and were soon in trouble, losing three wickets in the opening nine overs.

They never recovered despite a defiant knock of 63 (off as many balls) from skipper Lee Dixon, while Rick Moore, nursing a nasty finger injury, survived more than two hours at the crease. He managed just eight runs and did not score off 99 of the 107 balls that came his way.

Of the six bowlers used by Berkshire, they all took at least one wicket and they included Andy Rishton in his first bowl for the side this season.

Cheshire were eventually all out for 139 in 60.1 overs, with seven overs remaining.

The Berkshire bowling figures were Wilkin 11.1-1-41-3, Nugent 15-5-41-3, Andersson 6-1-20-1, Peploe 20-16-15-1, Raja 5-2-7-1, Rishton 3-0-6-1.

Summary: Berkshire 349 (R Morris 69, Peploe 65) and 296-8dec (Davison 90no) beat Cheshire 295 (Dearden 86; Peploe 5-97) and 139 (R Dixon 63) by 211 runs.

Richard Morris, the stand-in skipper, said: "It was a great team performance from start to finish. Of the nine sessions in the game, I thought we won seven or even eight of them. At the business end of things we saw some really quality batting from Stewart Davison, Chris Peploe and Matt Carter. They applied themselves really well and set things up nicely for us."

Berkshire: Ollie Wilkin (Ealing), Michael Roberts (Henley), Martin Andersson (Reading), Richard Morris (capt, Henley), Billy Rogers (Finchampstead), Andy Rishton (Finchampstead), Chris Peploe (Datchet), Stewart Davison (Henley), Matt Carter (Finchampstead), Tom Nugent (Henley), Ali Raja (Slough).

Next up for Berkshire is a trip to Shifnal on July 17-19 to play a Shropshire side who have won all three of their championship games so far and head the Western Division table.