Izzy claims first senior wickets in Ketton win over youthful Spalding side

Ketton Sports enjoyed a comfortable win in Rutland League Division Three on Sunday.

Visitors Spalding gave some of their younger players experience and used five players aged between 12 and 14.

And one of them - 14-year-old Stamford School student Ollie Dring - narrowly missed out on a century. Mat Bird trapped him LBW with the young teenager on 93.

Fellow opener, 13-year-old James Laud, made 19.

Ollie’s dad Chris - a well-known player in Lincolnshire - and his younger brother Barney also played.

Spalding found it fairly hard going as Bird took 3-19 and Izzy Smith 2-13 - her first wickets in senior cricket. The visitors made 173-7 off 40 overs.

Sports lost just two wickets reaching their target - both going to two of Spalding’s younger players.

Martin Underwood made a nice 69 off 64 deliveries before Laud caught him off 14-year-old Harry Birch.

And fellow opener Will Bird (37) was caught by Macey Andrews off the bowling of 12-year-old George Morris.

Ben Potter, with a quick 52 off 24 balls, and Mat Bird (9) saw Sports to 177-2.

Oakham picked up 19 points in Division Two with a six-wicket home defeat of Whittlesey.

The visitors won the toss and elected to bat and would not have been too disheartened by posting 188-8.

Ben Southern made an early breakthrough for the Rutlanders by bowling Simon Parker to make it 7-1.

And when Nilesh Patel took a catch off Tom Clifton with the score on 16-2 things were looking rosy for Oakham.

However, Whittlesey did well to move on to 130-4.

Oakham made steady progress with all but one of the the seven bowlers claiming at least one wicket.

But their reply got off to a terrible start when Ollie Hubbard was caught off his second ball for a duck.

Fellow opener Will Begy stuck around for the duration though, hitting nine fours en route to making 72.

Matt Williams was also unbeaten on 52, enjoying a six and seven other boundaries.

Fergus Cato (run out on 27) and Joe Johnson (24) chipped in too as Oakham made 189-4 with seven overs to spare.

Meanwhile, Oakham 2nd took maximum points at Weldon in Division Three.

The Rutlanders’ highlight was 106 from opener Will Stuart-Jones - more than half (64) came from fours.

Josh Coulson also made 50 before being stumped.

It all contributed to a nice Oakham score of 239-8. Morgan Potter took 3-39 for Weldon.

Harry Lemon was Oakham’s star man with the ball (4-20). He bowled John Mathis and Lee Bratley, caught and bowled Jake Kerfoot and had Adam Haynes caught by George Everett.

It was a good afternoon, too, for Oakham’s Chris Clarke. He took 3-17 in ripping out Weldon’s middle order.

Cormac Calman bowled Chloe Hay to leave Weldon well adrift on 109 all out.

In Division One, Barnack went down by seven wickets at home to Peterborough after making 157-8.

Market Deeping posted a better target of 240-8 but saw Burghley Park successfully chase it down. And Oundle beat Uffington by seven wickets.