CRICKET: Chelmsford’s league teams largely got back in the winning habit this weekend, with four wins from five. There were fine innings from Paul Jones, David Thrift, Steve Pleasant and Peter Drain on Saturday with Miles Clark taking the honours on Sunday, scoring his first hundred in adult cricket.

With Jones in fine form, the first team gave an object lesson in chasing to surpass Hainault & Clayhall’s 247 for six.

The second team had a comfortable eight wicket win over Chingford. Good bowling, especially from Keenan Galas (3-55) and Imran Akhtar (3-46) restricted the home side to 181 for 8, Rhone scoring 58. Good batting from Thrift (88*) and Matt Hammond (55*) made fairly short work of that. The third team got an impressive win by 141 runs over West Essex. Barry Clayden (42) and James Arnold (44) were top scorers in Chelmsford’s 238 for nine. Craig Thompson (3-23) ran through the top order before Nazir (37) and Najib (35) put up some resistance. Once they were removed, Chai Pandya (4-42) and Neal Abhyankar (3-0) made short work of the rest.

Hutton defended stoutly to deny the fourth team a win. Pleasant and Navin Mahendren hit half centuries as Chelmsford posted 201. The reply got off to a dreadful start with Ken Jones taking three wickets in his first two overs. Hutton closed at 114 for nine.

After a bad start with bat and ball, the fifth team got a hard- fought win over Wanstead. Mead (88) and Malik (68) had Wanstead 170 for one, but Max Balmford (3-49) opened the door to a collapse, the declaration coming at 203 for eight. Both openers fell without scoring but Drain (73) brought Chelmsford back into the game. An excellent seventh wicket partnership between Alex Shepherd and Balmford brought Chelmsford home.

A very inexperienced sixth team were overmatched against Upminster and sustained a heavy defeat.

Without Jones’ leadership the Sunday first team gave an abject lesson in chasing, losing by one run to South Woodford. Needing 39 from 10 overs with five wickets left, wickets were tossed away until the last pair needed 26, something they almost pulled off. Chris Prowting (70) and Gary Chidley (47) had played well to put Chelmsford in charge.

Craig Thompson turned in a decent all round performance with three wickets and 25.

Miles Clark was the star for the Sunday seconds as they beat Hadleigh & Thundersley by 109 runs. The score of 270-5 was based around a very positive partnership between Clark (101) and Zain Panjwani (80). Harrison made 62 in the reply.