Himley and Halesowen in a battle for second spot

Smethwick are 52 points clear at the top of the table with five games to play, but their latest three-wicket win at Berkswell was far from the straightforward affair that seemed likely when the hosts were 93-7.

Kamran Khanna manufactured something of a recovery with an aggressive 43 not out to leave Smethwick chasing 185, and despite Deepak Khatri’s 50 the visitors were under pressure at 139-6 before Bilal Shafayat dug in for an unbeaten 73-ball 30 that edged his team to the winning post.

Himley left Sandwell Park with a 32-run win built around Ollie Walker’s excellent 110-ball 89. This enabled the visitors to post 189 and with Walker and James Lunn then grabbing four wickets apiece, Dartmouth were 96-9 before Shozair Ali blasted 61 from 48 balls to see his team to 157 all out.

This win took Himley to third place, four points behind Halesowen, who completed a comfortable seven-wicket home win over Knowle & Dorridge.

James Rudge (4-42) made useful inroads with the ball for the hosts so despite Neil Pinner’s 62 K&D required lower-order runs from Vidham Iyer and acting captain Chris Cheslin to get them to 206.

A trio of early Ollie Currill wickets then raised visiting hopes only for Simon Gregory to dash them with a brilliant unbeaten 83-ball 120 containing 18 boundaries and four sixes that sped Halesowen to their target in just 33.4 overs.

Tom Fell made an excellent 119 for Wolverhampton, who as a result, set hosts Barnards Green 286. After Jakob Bhula lashed a quickfire 52, home captain Ryan Tongue responded to Fell’s earlier effort with an even-time 104 but the hosts then lost their last seven wickets for 58 against a Wolves attack in which Charles Jackson finished with 5-40.

With the bottom four facing each other it was very much moving day in Division Two and Kidderminster are now breathing more easily following their win over Wellington.

Kidderminster used eight bowlers and the visitors were reduced to 152-8 by Ben Jones (4-47) before their tail wagged to leave them chasing 210.

Dan Lategan then made 83 for Kiddy, but the visitors’ attack chipped away, and the home side were eventually indebted to Nathan Jukes whose breezy 37 not out saw them to a three-wicket win with an over remaining.

Old Hill fell to defeat by three runs against promotion hopefuls Shrewsbury.

Hasan Ahmed made his second unbeaten ton in as many weeks as they tried to chase 300, but once again, he finished on the losing side despite being 114 not out when his team fell three runs short of the 13 needed from the final over at 296-9.