Lymington got back to winning ways with a thumping of South Wilts at their Salisbury ground and so maintained their position as league leaders. Captain Gareth Berg again got among the wickets with 4-32 while opener Terry Crabb scored a 70 for the third game running. Both sides were experiencing the loss of experienced batters but it was South Wilts who suffered the most with a poor performance with batters playing themselves in but then soon getting out.

Berg won the toss and put South Wilts into bat and opener Matthew Falconer was soon back in the pavilion caught behind by keeper Robbie Hamming off the bowling of Berg. Captain Ben Draper (17) was then soon out to a good catch by Jude Tollerfield off the bowling of Guy Layman (1-19). A 41-run partnership between opener James Dreg (24) and Tom Cheater (24) steadied the ship for a while before Berg in his second spell had both out. Archie Fairfax-Fox soon followed and South Wilts found themselves in some difficulty on 84-5 on a good batting wicket. Lawrence Yeo (16) hung about for a while but no later order batter scored more than 17 as the innings slowly subsided. Jovan Dhariwal (2-25) had a lively spell with his medium pace and with Tollerfield (2-26) the pair were largely responsible for polishing off the tail to leave the opposition all out in the 41st over. Crabb took three sharp catches in his trademark position, the slips, with Robbie Hemmings taking three behind the stumps. Crabb now has 10 scalps to his credit so far this season the highest (excluding wicket keepers) in the Premier Division .

This left South Wilts well short on 154 and so it proved as Lymington cantered home. There was an opening partnership of 114 in 26.4 overs and as opener Crabb (71 not out) admitted “we should have won by 10 wickets had not fellow opener Jovan not played a rash shot” off the bowling of James Degg (1-10). This was just after Dhariwal had reached his 50 with the pair going along nicely once they had got to grips with the spin of Tom Grant (1-47), who had taken 5-35 the previous week, and Archie Fairfax-Ross (0-17). Both openers punished any wayward deliveries with fours with Crabb finishing on 12 and Dhariwal 10. Robbie Hemmings (12) then fell to Grant and it was left to Harry Anstee (15 not out) to hit the winning boundary with Lymington home with 42 overs to spare.

This coming Saturday Lymington are at home to newly promoted side Portsmouth with an 11.00am start. It would be fantastic if more of the Lymington cricket lovers realised quite what a good side the town has. Lymington is currently the top side in Hampshire/East Dorset and so also at the summit of the club cricket pyramid. The evergreen captain Berg has only just retired from county cricket with Northamptonshire, Hampshire and Middlesex. Two of our younger players have played in the Varsity game (Oxford v Cambridge) and others played for Hampshire second XI or Dorset.