More milestones and formidable numbers for Peterborough Town's Josh Smith, while Spalding win the relegation battle with Market Deeping

The stand-in skipper struck his second successive century in Town’s 51-run Northants Premier Division win over Stony Stratford at Bretton Gate on Saturday to pass 5,000 runs in the competition in just 108 knocks.

He has now posted 17 Premier Division tons and over 50 other scores above 50 at an average close to 60. He’s also taken 124 top-flight wickets with his underrated off spin.

Smith has been in a class of his own in the Premier Division this summer. He has now passed 1,000 runs in all Northants League competitions and his tally of 857 league runs is over 300 more than any other batsman.

Smith struck 122 against Stony at close to a run-a-ball. He added 113 for the second wicket with Sulemain Saleem who contributed 61 from just 55 balls. They did best in a formidable 50-over score of 319-7. The visitors did threaten briefly and reached 190-3 before succumbing to 258 all out with spin twins Karanpal Singh and Lewis Bruce taking five wickets between them. Seamer Hayatullah Niazi returned the best figures of 3-30 with Nick Green bagging the prize scalp of Somerset CCC legend James Hildreth who made 17.

Oundle’s surprise 32-run home defeat at the hands of Kislingbury Temperance enabled the city side to climb back up to second, but they remain 32 points adrift of leaders Finedon with five games to go.

Kislingbury had damaged Town's titles last weekend and now they did the same to Oundle who have fallen well off the pace in the race to the top. The visitors to Milton Road posted a modest 162, but that was still too many for the home side who struggled from the start of their reply.

Will Park, Harrison Craig and Prim Patel each picked up two wickets for Oundle, but Conor Craig’s 28 was the best a home batsman could offer.

LINCS PREMIER DIVISION

There was another twist in the relegation battle as Spalding beat Market Deeping by 6 wickets. Deeping had won two matches in a row to get out of the drop zone, but they are now level on points with their conquerors, with just a 3-point gap to the bottom 2.

Saturday’s result was harsh on Sam Malton who dominated Deeping’s 210-9 with 100 not out. Malton rescued his side from 106-8 by adding 102 for the 9th wicket with Kester Sainsbury who contributed just 10.

Spalding also had batting problems, but from 128-4 Ollie Dring took charge with a well struck 95 not out from just 75 balls (3 6s, 16 4s.). Brother Barnaby Dring had earlier taken 3-19. Josh Lawrence made 52 for Spalding.

Burghley Park felt the force of the division’s batting star Priyanshu Khanduri who took his runs tally to a staggering 1,187 with an unbeaten 124 (117 balls) as he led Scunthorpe to a 5-wicket win. Khanduri, who has played first-class cricket in his Indian homeland, is averaging 118 for the team in third.

His latest knock overshadowed a big batting effort from Burghley captain Alex Ashwin who made 77 not out from 68 balls in his side’s 260-9.

Bourne were beaten by 6 wickets by Grantham at the Abbey Lawn. City based Mohammed Saif smacked an undefeated 101 from 61 balls (16 4s 4 6s) to propel Grantham past Bourne’s meagre team tally of 123.