GREAT Chishill II remained at the head of affairs in Division 4SB with a resounding 79-run victory over Linton Village II. Batting first in stifling heat the home side racked up 224-6, Simon Coxall maintaining his consistency with 60 and Paul Hunter bla

GREAT Chishill II remained at the head of affairs in Division 4SB with a resounding 79-run victory over Linton Village II.

Batting first in stifling heat the home side racked up 224-6, Simon Coxall maintaining his consistency with 60 and Paul Hunter blasting a rapid 55 at just the right time to boost the innings in the closing overs.

Terry Manning then produced an immaculate line and length to take 4-24 off his allotted 10 overs and with wily campaigner Gary Wright shooting out the tail, Chishill secured another 20-point haul.

In a welcome renewal of the fixture against their oldest rivals, Chrishall, Chishill got the upper hand on Sunday by exactly 100 runs.

Ollie Stoop's belligerent innings of 116 made the Chrishall bowlers toil in the heat and Tim Cartwright piled on the agony with an unbeaten half-century.

Mike Harris hit a patient 50 in reply, but Terry Manning's control and the pace of Guy Musson proved too much for the home side, the pair finishing with three wickets each.

A steady batting display led by Paul Staley made up for a mediocre bowling performance as Thriplow beat second place Camden II in CCA Division 2 South.

Thriplow put Camden into bat but the early bowling was too variable and the batsmen had far too many four balls and kept the score moving comfortably along.

Nigel Morris picked up two wickets but the rate was up around the six an over as Camden looked to be on the way to a big score.

However in the second half of the innings despite all the batsmen looking comfortable, they all fell when just looking to push on.

Critoph (52) was the pick and wickets fell to Turner (3-57), Neild (2-44) and Viner (2-16).

It was the latter's tight spell at the death that restricted the scoring in the final overs and Camden were all out for 227 in the penultimate over, about 50 less than they had hoped for.

The Thriplow innings was going to be split around the football but after Turner fell early on, William Russell looked like he was going to win the match single handed as four leg side sixes saw him reach 34 in only the ninth over.

However he played round a straight one and when Martin Craze fell to the last ball before the break, Thriplow needed 150 off 26 overs with seven wicket in hand.

On the resumption, Paul Staley and Andy Craze took control though, and looked very comfortable until Craze was bowled round his legs by leg spinner Dixon for 35.

Godric Smith joined Staley and pushed on to 179 when he was run out for 23.

When Staley fell hit wicket attempting a reverse sweep for 71, quickly followed by Viner, there were a few wobbles on the Thriplow bench but Matt Ayre hit a sparkling 30 not out to see them home with seven balls and three wickets to spare.

Resurgent Thriplow II destroyed league leaders Abington II at the weekend to continue their rise up the table to reach third place at the half way stage of a roller-coaster season.

This performance by the Thriplow team provided growing evidence that all of the players have begun to rediscover their form.

Pace duo Nathan Sugden and Ali King placed a vice-like grip on the hapless top order batsmen who were unable to score against Sugden's pace and King's accuracy.

Sugden finished with splendid figures of 10-1-15-0 and was very unlucky not to take wickets in his two spells.

King, on the other hand, produced his best bowling performance of this season to finish with 10-1-13-3.

After 20 overs, the home side found themselves languishing on 33-3 and desperately in need of inspiration from the potentially dynamic Hall, but his fireworks were extinguished by the experienced Ayre who lured him into an ill-advised pull shot that succeeded only in directing the ball onto middle stump.

Dabnor (5-0-13-1), Richie Turner (4-0-17-3) and Ayre (8.1-0-34-3) never let the pressure wane and sorry Abington were dismissed for a paltry 98.

This total was never going to be enough but Abington's hopes briefly flared when Thriplow's opener Daniel Carr was bowled by Hall off the third ball of the first over.

Ken Ayre steadied the ship and was looking to be in fine form before being dismissed for 14, caught and bowled off a full-blooded straight drive that Hall miraculously held when pursuing self-preservation.

When Jackson was out for 18 and Dave Osborne was stumped next ball Thriplow were briefly teetering on 66-4.

Dabnor (22) joined the immovable Goodacre(24 not out) and the pair rapidly approached the victory target to quell any thoughts of a fightback from the league leaders.

When Dabnor was out in the anti-penultimate over, aiming to finish the game with a flamboyant final boundary, it was left to Goodacre to score the winning run to deservedly secure Thriplow's third successive victory.