1st XI v Pinkneys Green 1st XI

PACEMAN Ghulam Abbas ripped the heart out of Pinkneys Green as Sonning continued their charge towards the title.

Abbas finished with 7-24 to help dismiss Green for 49 in a landslide 159-run victory.

And Pinkneys skipper Steve Greene admitted afterwards: "We didn't do ourselves justice and were a bit embarrassed as we came off the pitch at the end."

Although angered by his team's batting nightmare, Greene had been quite happy with the bowling display which restricted Sonning to 208-9.

After hammering 100 off the first 15 overs Sonning looked set to post a daunting total before Pinkneys put the brakes on their scoring with some tight bowling and fielding.

But they hadn't figured on the awesome pace of Abbas who struck seven times in another power-packed performance. "That's probably the sharpest I've seen Ghulam bowl in two years," admitted Sonning skip-per Gary Phillips.

Earlier, Duncan Parr lead the Sonning batting with 59 while Pinkneys took regular wickets as Asif Aziz (3-63), Jagz Dhillon (3-42) and Steve Curlewis (3-64) all chipped in.

But when Curlewis played on to Abbas early in the Pinkneys reply the rot started to set in as the Sonning strike bowler clean bowled five more victims.

At the other end, Phil Swann took 2-17 and Phillips was delighted. He said: "I was particularly pleased with the application shown in the field because we didn't have a massive total to defend but we stayed fully focussed throughout."