Uppingham Town Cricket Club defeat Enderby in their Leicestershire League clash
Uppingham Town returned to form with a 101-run win as bottom side Enderby were ruthlessly brushed aside in Saturday's Leicestershire League Division One match.
After being put into bat, and with one eye on the weather and dark clouds looming, Jamie Dumford and Ben Farnsworth launched themselves into the home attack by racing to 50 inside just seven overs.
In a welcome return to form, Farnsworth was in ruthless mood as he smashed his way to 45 from just 27 deliveries (five fours, three sixes) before being first out with the score on 91.
Skipper Dumford would go on to make his third consecutive half-century, from 58 balls, before eventually falling for 72 (13 fours).
All the Town batsman got in on the act and, despite three breaks for rain which ultimately saw the match trimmed to 36 overs, Uppingham totalled 229-4 which was surely too much for Enderby to chase.
With more clouds gathering, and both sides aware that 20 overs needed playing to constitute a game, Town fairly rattled through their overs, chipping away with wickets as they went meaning Enderby were never up with the required rate.
Toby Rees (2-32) removed both openers and Danny Dumford then claimed the big wicket of the dangerous Neal Mackey who was threatening to challenge the score by clubbing five boundaries in his 20-ball 24.
It then fell to the evergreen Mark Cox to claim his second five-wicket haul of the season as he worked his magic to fillet the Enderby middle order on his way to figures of 5-30.
Scott Green chipped in with 1-26 and Gatin Wadhwa (1-6) applied the finishing touch as Enderby closed all out for 128.
There's an adage that ‘catches win matches’ and given that nine of the 10 wickets fell to catches, Uppingham did their bit to prove this.
Danny Dumford led the way by grabbing three catches including a fantastic one-handed effort to finish the game.
Thorpe Arnold visit Castle Hill on Saturday with Uppingham needing the win to keep the pressure on the sides above in the quest for promotion.
Uppingham Town 2nds saw their Division Seven East match with Kibworth 4ths washed out after they had dismissed their visitors for 124.
Uppingham 3rds were bowled out for 80 in their Division Nine East defeat against Langton 3rds.
Magnus Robertson made 22 and Heath Broughton was unbeaten on 16 at the close of the Town innings.
Langtons lost seven wickets in reaching their target inside 19 overs as Charlie Cox claimed 3-23, Joe Bennett bagged 2-28 while Ryan Sheehan struck twice in a three over spell that yielded just five runs.
Oakham won the table-topping derby in Division Two of the Rutland League on Sunday after defeating Uppingham by 26 runs at Castle Hill.
Oakham had been restricted to 128-9 from their 45 overs after batting first with Uppingham being dismissed for 102 in their reply.
Will Begy had top-scored with 35 for Oakham while Fergus Cato made 21 with Scott Green and Harvey Stafford taking 3-16 and 3-21 respectively for Uppingham.
Home skipper George Morley made 35 in Uppingham’s reply but Ben Southern struck back with 4-21 from nine overs while Joe Johnson and Angus Owen took two wickets apiece for Oakham.
The victory means Oakham are 19 points clear of second-placed Uppingham with two matches remaining but Town do have a game in hand on the leaders.
