Five star performance from Guest for Porthill

MATHEW Guest led a superb Porthill Park thirds batting performance as they defeated their Stone SP counterparts in NSSCL Division Four.

Porthill Park piled up 304-5 from their 40 overs in Saturday’s encounter to virtually have the points wrapped up by the halfway stage.

And it was Guest who set them on the road to that huge score as he compiled 122 at the top of the innings.

Guest struck 18 fours and three sixes in his 102-ball knock - and Chris Matthews was no shrinking violet either.

He blazed five fours and five sixes in his 43ball 71 to maintain the quick tempo in the home side’s innings.

Will Price (44) and Connor Uren (34) also joined in the run spree, while Joel Davies and Chanaka Ekanayake both picked up a couple of wickets.

In reply, the experienced Steve Aston scored 70 and there was 54 from David Flower.

But Stone SP were always off the pace runrate wise and although Ekanayake added 43, they drew stumps on 208-6. James Cope helped himself to a couple of victims.

Leaders Newcastle & Hartshill banked their seventh win of the campaign on their visit to Onneley.

Mitchell Kelsall and Joe Wilson put on 148 for the second wicket to enable Castle to post 211-5.

Kelsall’s run-a-ball 85 contained 13 boundaries, with Wilson hitting the same number of fours in his 82. Adam Edwards took 3-48 for the home side.

Jake Short (59) and Tom Salt (31) impressed after tea, but Castle restricted Onneley to 157-8.

Harry Sapsford, Rob Hagan and Jacob Maddock all took two wickets.

Elworth are two points behind in second place after winning at home against Meir Heath.

Joe Stephenson’s 61, which contained nine fours and one six, allied to 41 apiece from Connor Flowers and Ed Parrish, enabled Elworth to hit the dizzy heights of 249-7. Anwar Hussain (3-22) did his best to stem the flow of runs.

A breezy 23 from Jason Britton opened Meir Heath’s reply and although Mansoor Akhtar added 76 not out, Meir Heath were eventually bowled out for 174.

Isaac Austin claimed 3-32, with valuable support coming in the form of double strikes from Daniel Roberts, James Burnett and Tom Seabridge.

Barlaston made the most of their home date with Hem Heath thirds. Leigh Matthews’ 28 and an unbeaten 24 from Sam Plant were the principal contributions to Barlaston’s 154 all out. Ben Topley scooped 3-38 for the visitors. Matt Lucas and Robert Sanders weighed in with 32 and 27 respectively on the resumption.

But three wickets each from Ethan Squire (3-11) and Matthews (3-38) dismissed Hem Heath for 123.