Oundle Town continue to set a strong pace as Peterborough Town let down by careless batting

Oundle Town will now carry local hopes. The leaders delivered another fine performance without winning on Saturday as they dominated an Overstone side packed with four Northants affiliated players at Milton Road.

Opener Sam Jarvis cracked 114 of Oundle’s 50-over score of 297-7, batting with great maturity as first Conor Craig (72 from 64 balls) and younger brother Harrison Craig (66no from 38 balls) added the firepower.

Overstone finished on 201-9 with the last pair surviving the final seven overs. A great day for the Craigs continued with left-arm spinner Harrison returning splendid figures of 3-39 from 15 overs and seamer Conor taking 3-67.

Oundle, who had won their five previous completed matches, are still 12 points clear of Brigstock and Finedon, with Peterborough Town back in fifth a whopping 47 points behind the leaders after just eight matches.

The carefree approach to batting which has served the city side well on many occasions in the past backfired horribly against Brigstock at Bretton Gate yesterday as they failed to appreciate the weather conditions, the quality of visiting overseas bowler Tashwin Lukas or the fact a couple of their own key batsmen were missing.

It was a gorgeous day for batting. An afternoon for seeing off a considerable threat and feasting on the lesser bowlers that followed in sweltering conditions which should have caused fatigue for those in the field. Brigstock probably couldn’t believe their luck when Town surrendered in just 30 overs and five balls for 143, a score that relied heavily on a lusty 32 from number 10 Karanpal Singh and 31 extras.

Town battled hard in the field and took seven wickets before defeat was confirmed with almost 28 overs to go, but the game was pretty much up inside the first 15 overs as the hosts slumped to 45-5 thanks to a succession of airy wafts outside the off stump. Remarkably both openers were dropped in the gully from the first ball they faced in the opening over of the day delivered by South African Lukas.

Josh Smith – a ceunturian last week – then fell to the fifth ball to one of four smart catches taken by former Town pro Asim Butt. Lessons weren’t learnt as Chris Milner, David Clarke, Zeeshan Manzoor and Kyle Medcalf all followed in similar fashion.

It as a fatal collapse given high-class batting all-rounders Nick Green and Lewis Bruce were absent with the former serving a one-game ban after falling foul of the umpires in the previous two matches.

Lukas claimed 4-13 in his first spell and Town were lucky his return to action was delayed as he soon took the final two wickets to fall to finish with outstanding figures of 6-19 from 9.5 overs.

Seamer Bashrat Hussain (3-35) and left-arm spinner Shiv Darba (2-21) delayed the inevitable, but after Brigstock had slipped from 30-0 to 52-4, they delivered consistent partnerships to get home to seal joint second spot behind Oundle.