Ur Rahman and Rasheed tee up two-wicket victory
Chilterns League round-up: Littlewick move up to second after beating Braywood 2nds
Littlewick Green have moved up to second in the Chilterns League Premiership, just five points adrift of leaders Cadmore End after Saturday's two-wicket win over Braywood 2nds.
While rivals were drawing the first of the longer format matches, Littlewick managed to claim a crucial win to move up to second.
Having won the toss and elected to field, Littlewick bowled out Braywood for 226 in 46 overs, Nasir Mehmood's brilliant 115 and Mohammed Ansar's 42 at odds with a generally poor display at the crease.
Anees Ur Rahman finished with his side's best figures of 6-63, decimating Braywood's middle order, while Nanda Devaiah tempted Mehmood into a shot that was caught by Junaid Akhtar.
In reply, Littlewick made a cautious start, with Barnaby Hogg hitting 27, and Christie Green adding 14, however, Moshin Rasheed carried his side to victory with a sensational 107no. Support was relatively thin on the ground, but it mattered little as Green got to their target in the 44th over with two wickets in hand.
Pinkneys Green have dropped to fourth in the standings after they picked up a disappointing seven points from Saturday's draw at Emmbrook & Bearwood.
Having won the toss and elected to field they saw their hosts put on 253-8 from 47 overs, with the top order
crackling into life through the bats of Ollie Williams (30), Joe Smart (40) and - in particular Andy Lazenbury (98). Lazenbury's innings was ended just two runs shy of his century by Damian Atherton (3-60) and the brakes were finally applied. However, Green were never really in the chase with opener Atherton departing for a duck and Prashant Sharma scoring two.
Uday Tikoo (42) and Vinay Reddy (21) played well to build a promising stand, but they soon fell well behind the required run rate needed for
victory. Matthew Harding (31no) and Chandu Sekar Bandla (12no) eventually guided them to the close of their innings on 152-6.
In Chilterns League Division 1, Holyport kept up the pressure on leaders Knotty Green with a seven-wicket win over bottom of the table Chalfont St Giles 2nds.
In doing so they cut the gap to Knotty to just two points after the leaders lost by eight wickets against Denham 2nds.
Victory was a fairly routine one for Holyport and they picked up a healthy 35 points in the process.
Having elected to bat, Chalfont St Giles struggled badly at the crease, lasting just 23.2 overs before being bowled out for 107. Andy Hardy resisted for a time and scored an impressive 54 but aside from wicket keeper Nick Zala's 18, everyone else managed single figure scores.
Holyport used seven bowlers, with Mustafa Raza (3-14) and Obaid Wajid (3-43) finishing with their best figures.
Holyport's reply also featured some moments their batsmen would like to forget, as Ghulam Mirza (0), Mustafa Raza (0) and Suvojyoti Datta (0) all departed without troubling the scorer, however, Hashim Sulaman (24no) and Bhavik Patel (69no) ensured the edginess wasn't contagious as they batted Holyport to a comfortable win.
Little Marlow are also in the promotion frame after they beat Littlewick Green's 2nd team by three wickets.
The side moved up to fourth off the back of the result and collected 35 points in the process.
Zain Gill (3-27) and Umar Islam (3-11) both took three wickets to limit Green to 149 all out in 40.2 overs.
In reply, they recovered from a shaky start, having fallen to 39-6, to claim victory. Farooq Hussain (60no) and
Sai Kiran (31) were the players to get them there, putting on a stand of 88, as Little Marlow finished on 150-7 in 29 overs.