Sides are often at the mercy of the elements, from Sheffield Shield finals being decided without a ball being bowled to outfits being robbed by the intricacies of the Duckworth-Lewis systems.

Orange City have found themselves on the right side of the weather ledger after they were the only side in the top half of the Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket competition to get onto the park on Saturday.

With all three games in Bathurst canned, the Warrior's rivals at the top of the table in Cavaliers, St Pat's Old Boys, CYMS and Centennials Bulls all missed out, with Orange City's win over bottom-placed City Colts propelling them five points clear to the top of the BOIDC ladder.

It would have been more, too, if it weren't for the dogged determination of Colts' Dave Sellers, Pat Hill and Matt Stephens to dig in and prevent the Warriors from snaring an outright.

Colts resumed at 7-54 in reply to City's 217, but Hill (32), Stephen (18) and Dave Henderson (18) all dug in, keeping the Warriors in the field for 18 overs as they hunted the last three wickets and begin a chase of an outright win.

The outright chase started on the right foot - literally - with left-arm speedster Matt Roberts taking 4-25 in his opening six overs to have Colts 4-39 in the 20^th over.

However, the familiar faces of Hill (42 not out) and Stephen (48 not out), as well as the 29-over innings of opener Dave Sellers (44) stole the Warriors hopes of doubling up their points tally.

Orange City skipper Ed Morrish said it was "always good to get the win", especially when their rivals for the minor premiership were unable to get on the park in Bathurst.

"Obviously it puts us five points clear which is unfortunate for Cavs and Pats and whatnot but that's just cricket I guess," he said.

"It's nice to have that buffer considering we lost that last game at the end of last year so a little bit of a buffer is nice but it's up to us to hold onto it so we've got to perform in every game from here on out.

"I don't know how it happened [in Bathurst], we had the same amount of rain but they called it off early."

Finishing in the top two is "certainly the goal" according to Morrish, but his side isn't getting too far ahead of itself with three games left.

Morrish was miffed at not taking the last three wickets in Colts' first innings quicker, but he said he was pleased with efforts of "big cranky thing" Matt Robberts (4-31).

"Robbo bowled well yesterday ... he's a competitor and that's exactly what you want in a game like than when they wicket isn't giving you much," Morrish said.

"On a flat deck, to tough it out like we did was pretty good. We bowled them out in 18 overs so longer than we hoped it would take."

Morrish was full of praise for the Colts batters who dug in to deny his side outright, especially for Hill who finished the match with 74 runs to his name.

"Paddy batted really well the whole game, it's just too hard to get an outright at the moment [with the flat wicket]," Morrish said.