Two half-centuries were scored on a glorious evening for cricket as the top three defeated St John, Abacus and Air Conditioning Jersey respectively.Beeches, who retained their six-point lead with now just two matches to play, came home with four overs to spare at Grainville to beat St John by four wickets.Josh Hackland scored 53 runs for the league leaders while Andy Richardson hit 44 for bottom-placed St John.Sporting Club’s top-order all flourished against Abacus as they rattled up 151 for 3 wickets against Abacus.
Skipper Matt Hague (34, three 4s) and Tony Carlyon (38, two 4s, one 6) laid the foundations for a 34-run win with an opening partnership of 62.
Tony Carlyon kept up the momentum going as he struck one 4 and a 6 for his 43 in an unbroken fourth-wicket partnership of 58 with Paul Carberry (17).Peter Canham hit two boundaries to top score on 37 for Abacus.St Ouen, who play leaders Beeches next Tuesday at Les Quennevais, had bowler Paul Horton to thank for their four-run win against Air Conditioning Jersey at FB2.Air Con were heading for victory requiring 20 runs to win off the last three overs only for Horton to hold them off brilliantly by conceding just six runs in his final two overs, leaving Air Cond five runs of the win.
Horton’s four overs resulted in two wickets for just a dozen runs.Ben Silva played the anchor role for the losers, with a fine 55, before he was out to a direct throw from the gully by Ward Jenner – revenge for his run out earlier by Silva!