DESPITE a brave fight, Cherry Hinton were unable to halt Thriplow s march at the top of CCA Senior League Two as the visitors to Quy ran out winners by 63 runs. Thriplow won the toss and took first knock despite the wicket looking to have a bit of early l

DESPITE a brave fight, Cherry Hinton were unable to halt Thriplow's march at the top of CCA Senior League Two as the visitors to Quy ran out winners by 63 runs.

Thriplow won the toss and took first knock despite the wicket looking to have a bit of early life.

Dickon Turner was unable to repeat his steady scores to date as he skied Martin Livermore to mid-wicket for a duck.

However Martin Craze and William Russell survived some half chances and a difficult opening spell to see the score to 54 at drinks.

Russell then took control and it was a surprise when after 10 fours, and a six he cut Glover uppishly to point for 65.

Craze and Paul Staley took things on until Craze fell for 40, and then instead of consolidating, Thriplow lost regular wickets as Staley (24), Goodacre (13) and Smith (14) all perished skying pull shots, although the latter did lift an earlier one onto the pavilion roof.

Andrew Morris then suffered a second successive duck and from a position of strength Thriplow were 177-7 with only five overs remaining.

Chris Viner (22 not out) and Chris Neild (38 not out) had other ideas though and bludgeoned a further 53 off the remaining 30 deliveries to post a total of 230-7, about par on a hot day.

Livermore and Dennington set off purposefully in response although both were troubled by Malcolm Gilmer whose pace and movement were exceptional.

Unfortunately his front foot was more of a problem as in addition to his three wickets he hit the stumps a further three times off no balls.

With Turner chipping in with a couple of wickets the Cherries were reduced to 56-5 in the 16th over and the game was finished as a contest.

Gilmer finished with the excellent figures of 3-31 off 10 overs, but this could have been 6-13 had been able to get his feet in the right place.

Turner (3-30) and Neild (2-33) bowled tightly but despite pin-point field placing and rotating the attack, the visitors could not finish things off and the latter part of the game became an all round net, the home side finishing on 167-8 to leave Thriplow comfortable winners.

Thriplow II have well and truly been bitten by the winning bug - and they like the feeling.

They registered their second consecutive victory over a youthful, but spirited Cambridge Granta V team, to consign to distant memory the pain of two early season defeats.

Hosts Thriplow won the toss and elected to bat on a mottled but hard wicket under thinning cloud.

Openers Daniel Carr and John Deed looked untroubled against some steady, but unchallenging, bowling and it was a bit of a surprise when Deed was out in the sixth over.

Off a top edge, the ball flew to the youngest of Granta's players, positioned at short third man, who joyously clung on to the ball high above his head, but still only four feet off the ground.

Thriplow lost Jeremy Tuck two overs later to find themselves on 29-2 in the eighth over but incoming Jerry Jackson (17) steadied the ship in the company of Carr (40) to create a platform from which the lower order batsmen were able to benefit.

Duncan Walker in particular took a liking to the Granta second and third string bowlers, scoring 51 in a partnership of 99 with Nathan Sugden (45 not out), to accelerate the score towards a 200 plus score.

When Walker departed shortly before the close of the innings, Jon Collins replaced him and rattled off a quick 20 not out to allow Thriplow to set a target of 218 for victory.

Granta opened up with their more senior members but they were unable to make much headway against a sharp opening spell from Sugden (9-1-24-2) supported by the miserly Dabnor (5-1-10-0) who was forced to limp off after the recurrence of a hamstring injury sustained earlier in the week.

It was left to the younger Granta members to make a game of it and secure maximum batting points from their losing total of 158 all out.

All the Thriplow bowlers performed well with Tuck, Turner and Osborne all taking a wicket each while Ken Ayre was too much for the batsmen to handle finishing with 3 -19.

Thriplow II travel to leaders Abington next week seeking to gain revenge for the narrow defeat suffered three weeks previously and set-up a strong position from which they hope to surge into the second half of their season.

Reed III went top of the Herts County League Division 13 following an eight wicket win at Sawbridgeworth V.

The visitors were made to field first, which was likely to be hard work on such a hot day. However David Hill decided to carry on his impressive form of recent by getting the first wicket in his first over.

He then went on to take a further three wickets in his opening spell to leave Sawbo' on 18-4.

The bowling change then came with Neal Haslam coming on and also starting to take wickets, finishing with with figures of 3-30.

Also in the wickets was 14 year old Jack Tidy (2-6), who got two in two balls, and was unlucky not to get his hat-trick, when what seemed to be a good lbw appeal got turned down.

Everything seemed to be going very well for Reed as Sawbridgeworth were 43-9. However, the heat started to tire the Reed fielders, as the last wicket partnership was very stubborn and put on 42 runs before Hill finished with impressive figures of 5-14.

Reed came out after tea, knowing that they were chasing a low target but were aware that the pitch had been playing up a bit in the first innings.

In the end Reed got the runs for the loss of just two wickets, with Fergus Martin continuing with his fine batting form and getting 30, and Kieran Ward getting an unbeaten 46.

Reed under-15s continued their fine campaign with a pair of victories, against Hertford and Cambourne.

Against Hertford, Reed were put in to bat on a chilly evening and the batsmen started cautiously against some tight Hertford bowling.

After 11 overs Reed were 35-1 but a steady loss of wickets did not stop Reed from pushing on in the second half of the innings..

Ben Brown blasted three sixes for his 19 and with Fergus Martin making 23 and Ed Garrott 16, Reed were eventually bowled out for 92 in the 20th over - a target that looked achievable on a good track.

Pick of the Hertford bowlers were Perry (1-8), Reid (1-12) and Ray (1-14).

Hertford's reply was similar to Reed's steady and a good partnership was building, but when O.Ray was caught out on the boundary for 12 and W Bancroft (33) became one of skipper Ed Garrott's two wickets, Reed were right back in the game.

Every time it looked like Hertford were back in the match, a wicket would fall. Superb bowling spells from Jack Tidey, Ollie Smith, Tom Greaves and Fergus Martin backed up by Garrott's two catches and a run out, saw Reed claw another victory from the jaws of defeat as they won by three wickets.

Martin (35 not out) and Tom Greaves (31) led the way as Reed recorded an easy win against Cambourne.

Mitchell Cooper, Oliver Smith and Garott each took two wickets as Cambourne were limited to 75-8 in their 20 overs, before Martin and Greaves polished off the required runs in 11.3 overs.