Bourne break their duck; Deeping lose tense tussle
An inspired bowling performance helped Bourne break their Lincs Premier Division duck on Saturday with a superb seven-wicket win over Grimsby at the Abbey Lawn.
The visitors had gone into the clash having made an unbeaten start to the season which had put them in second place in the early standings.
However, once a promising early opening partnership between Harry Warwick (28) and Matthew Cliffe (12) had been broken, the Bourne bowlers ripped through the Grimsby batting line-up.
Colin Cheer claimed three top order wickets to return 3-36 from his seven over stint while fantastic fielding from Bourne helped net three runs outs.
Sam Evison struck twice to run out top scorer Geoff Middleton for 33 and tail ender Usman Aziz for seven.
Jack Berry also bagged a couple of wickets, including Bailey Mawer for 20, and then ran out Jack Nilsson to dismiss Grimsby for 130 in 34 overs.
Berry then led the Bourne assault with 32 before he was caught and bowled by Aziz.
Joey Evison added 14 before the in-form Sam Evison and Carl Wilson took Bourne past the winning post.
Evison eased to an unbeaten 38 while Wilson was 35 not out as Bourne cruised home inside 26 overs.
The victory allowed Bourne to leapfrog near neighbours Market Deeping who went down to a 15-run defeat at Boston in a tense and low scoring tussle.
Sachithra Perera had pocketed five wickets to help dismiss Boston inside 30 overs for 112.
Sam Holland (17) and Ricky Lovelace (12) had put on 30 for the first Boston wicket before James Hook struck twice to dismiss both Holland and dangerman Jonny Cheer who went fourth ball without scoring.
Perera then took hold of the Boston innings to dismiss Ishan Jayarathna (19), Michael Musson (11) and top scorer Mahir Yousuff (35) to leave Boston reeling on 106-6.
The hosts then lost their last four wickets for just six runs as Tom Anderson claimed a quick-fire treble with Perera picking up his fifth wicket after trapping Tim Bell leg before first ball.
Josh Smith then set about leading Deeping to victory but, as he put the Boston bowling attack to the sword, wickets tumbled at an alarming rate around him.
Jayarathna struck twice times in rapid succession to leave Deeping on 7-2 which soon became 8-3 as both skipper Dave Sargeant and Jamie Morgan were dismissed without scoring.
Smith's surge took Deeping past the 40-run mark before Hook and Patrick Harrington went cheaply to leave the visitors on 43-5.
Bell was then introduced into the Boston attack and he took the wickets of Perera, Dave Gillett and Dan George to leave Deeping on 76-8.
Smith's one-man batting exploits took him past his half-century, but the departure of Ali Sharp for Jayarathna's third wicket left Deeping 29 runs short of the victory with just one wicket remaining.
Smith added another dozen for the last wicket after hitting 10 fours in his 74-ball 64 before he was finally bowled by Jayarathna to leave Deeping 97 all out.