London Maccabi Vale 1st's Middlesex Sunday League Division One title hopes suffered a setback when they were beaten by UCS Old Boys.
LMV openers Danny Caro (53) and Paul Durban took time to settle but accelerated to good affect, putting on 120 for the first wicket. Caro's departure led to a mini-collapse with Adam Brand, Jerome Colmans, Richard Black, Martin Schultz and Alex Gold falling in quick succession. Having gone from 120-0 to 168-6, it was left to Durban (92 not out) and Jon Galloway (31 not out) to steer LMV to 226-7. UCS bowler Ben Bloom came in for some harsh treatment.
Ryan Kangisser, Neil Lederman and Brand grabbed a wicket apiece, with a piece of quick thinking from wicketkeeper Colmans accounting for Adam Gishen. But an unbeaten 134 from UCS's Australian opener saw the visitors home with nine balls to spare.
Next up for LMV, who lead UCS at the top of the table on run rate, is Stanmore with Belmont & Edgware and Bharat Olympians to follow.
Belmont & Edgware 1st suffered their third defeat in five matches. Bronson Ritterman (37), Daniel Geey (35) and Stuart Davis (31 not out) were their only batsmen to hit double figures as they finished on 177-8. Stanmore cantered home by eight wickets with 16 overs to spare.
Southgate (161-2) went top of the Barratts Maccabi Sunday League after beating Chigwell (158) by eight wickets. They leapfrogged MAL but have played a game more. Good knocks from Jerome Roith, Richard Ferrer and Oscar Brodkin helped Casual Nomads (202-7) go third in the table after easing past Belmont & Edgware 2nd (132) by 70 runs.
South Manchester Maccabi ended their silverware drought by defeating Sedgley Park in the Manchester Jewish Cricket League's Twenty20.
The evergreen David Marks put South on the back foot early on, claiming the prize wicket of Loz Newman.
Huddy Lieberman (20) top-scored before miscuing a full toss from Davidi Neumann into the hands of David Rosenberg, one of his three catches on the day. An excellent spell by Jonny Wineberg (3-2), the highlight of which was a slower ball to bowl South captain Barry Price, kept the runs down.
A fine eighth-wicket partnership between Steve Glicher and Andrew Feldman helped South past the 100 mark. The total looked a little light but with South's bowling being very economical this season, they believed they were in with a chance.
Sedgley needed five an over but never kept up with the run rate. From the start of the innings, Jonny and Huddy Lieberman strangled the batting, giving away 11 runs in the first six overs. Lieberman senior bowled through to end with two wickets costing five runs.
Big-hitters Shia Rabinowitz and Jonny Wineberg (30, retired) left Sedgley needing 11 from Huddy Lieberman's last over but their fate was sealed when captain Matt Glyn trod on his stumps attempting a reverse sweep to leave South to celebrate an eight-run victory.
MJCL chairman Jonny Wineberg congratulated South Manchester for their "well-deserved trophy after coming so close last year as runners-up in all three competitions".
