SEWERBY'S lead in division two has been reduced to five points following their abandoned game at Scarborough.

Stamford Bridge took the opportunity to move into second place with a big draw at the expense of Harrogate, who continue to languish at the foot of the division.

Stamford embarked on a run fiesta as three batsmen made big scores with Stuart Boyle heading the trio with 92, Peter Aconley making 64 and Andy Milner adding an undefeated 51. Rob Stamworth made 27 in reply but Graham Tipping 3-16 ensured his side maintained the ascendancy as Harrogate closed on 132-8.

Bridlington's overseas star Haafiz Khalid was in imperious form as he creamed 141 off the Hemingbrough bowling. With Steve Garton adding 46, Brid were able to race to 245-5 despite the 3-61 return from Gaudav Singh. Hemingbrough's reply was aborted after they had reached 22-1 which caused them to slip to third place.

Crayke moved into the calm mid table waters when they had a convincing victory at St Helen's Road over Dringhouses. Skipper Jon Wright made an unbeaten 56 which helped Crayke recover from 81-6 after Richard Cole (4-48) had emaciated the early order. Other runs came from Paul Hutchinson 33 and Norman Pipes 26 as Crayke narrowly missed a fourth batting point at 173-7.

Dringhouses were then swept aside by Mark Hutchinson, whose impressive figures of 7-35 included a hat-trick and had the hosts all out for 99.

Rowntrees boosted their survival hopes at the expense of fellow strugglers Hovingham who were teetering on the brink of defeat at 131-9 when the game reached its conclusion. Richard Tuite was top scorer for the Haxby Road side, making 67.

With good support coming from Gerry Capelin 29, Mick Jones 27 and Paul Brook 29, Rowntrees reached full batting reward at 219-8. Jonty Rounthwaite took 3-52 for the visitors and then saw team-mate Stuart Prest make 49 but Paul Brook's 4-40 almost clinched the full quota of points.

Updated: 09:02 Monday, July 05, 2004