Kentish Express Ashford & District
Pugh plays starring role
Kent Regional League
A fine all-round Darren Pugh performance helped Mersham Sports maintain their position at the top of Championship East with a 73-run home win over Holcombe & Blue Bell Hill.
Pugh finished the Mersham innings unbeaten on 99 as the hosts made 210-5 from their 46 overs, batting first.
He then took 5-34 as the opposition were bowled out for 137 inside 37 overs.
Boughton & Eastwell are 14 points clear at the top of 1A Central after two of their top three scored centuries in a 233-run win away to The Mote 3rds.
After winning the toss and electing to bat, Boughton & Eastwell skipper Craig Mannering scored 121 at the top of the order and shared a stand of 202 for the second wicket with David Gray (121).
Chris Brett’s 71 helped the visitors reach 360-5 before they bowled out their nine-man opponents for 127.
Wye’s opening pair of Matt Barnes (82) and Neil Williams (70) helped set up a 41-run win for their side, who made 239-3 batting first.
In reply, Borstal were going well but wickets for Robert Banks (4-49) and Keith Secrett (4-50) ensured a collapse in which the last seven batsmen all failed to reach double figures as the visitors were all out for 198.
Kennington will rue not posting a bigger total after Nelson chased down their total of 181-7 inside 43 overs to win by four wickets.
A five-wicket haul for David Philpott (5-15) made sure that Kennington 2nds had more to cheer about as they beat Littlebourne by nine wickets.
The victory was set up by Philpott, who helped restrict Littlebourne to 131 all out.
Kennington made light work of the chase as Jamie Hutton hit an unbeaten 77 .
Ashford Town 3rds lost away to St Margaret’s by 56 runs but did well considering they only had eight players.
The visitors won the toss and chose to field and were set a target of 247 for victory.
Town openers Alexander Coxall (69) and Joseph Dale (63) provided a great start to the chase but the away side lost their seven wickets for 190 to leave them second-bottom in 1C East.
Lewis Back’s five-wicket haul wasn’t enough to provide Willesborough with victory over Littlebourne 2nds in a lowscoring game in 2B East. Back took 5-42 as Willesborough were 110 all out and Littlebourne secured the win with one wicket in hand.
Mersham 2nds’ 163-8 was not enough to provide victory as they lost by four wickets to Holcombe & Blue Bell Hill in 2A East.
Nigel Griffiths top scored with 51 as 10-man Boughton & Eastwell 2nds (121) lost to Milstead by six wickets.