RUNAWAY leaders York Cricket Club were in peerless form as they swatted Doncaster Town aside in the Solly Sports Yorkshire ECB County Premier League.

Doncaster ran them close in the reverse fixture in May, but York won by nine wickets at Clifton Park to extend their lead at the top to 22 points with nine matches remaining.

The visitors won the toss and chose to bat, and openers Amit Kundra and Graham Attenborough made a solid start against Tom Bartram and Duncan Snell.

After an opening maiden from Bartram, boundaries came in each of the next five overs – and acting captain Nick Kay then went for ten in his one and only over.

After Doncaster had reached the 50 mark by the tenth over, Bartram had Kundra caught behind by Nigel Durham.

Daniel Woods came into the attack with Doncaster on 77-1.

In the 20th over, Tom Pringle got Attenborough, caught at the wicket for 42, and skipper Andrew Parkin-Coates followed to make it 84-3.

The spinners had established a stranglehold on the visitors’ batting, with Woods bowling five successive maidens.

Only Chris Spinella resisted the York attack for long, scoring 29 off 61 balls before being stumped by Durham off the bowling of Woods.

The rest of the batting subsided, with Woods returning excellent figures of 7-36 in 18 overs.

Pringle also bowled much better than his final return of 2-48 in 21.2 overs suggested.

After their good start, the visitors’ final total was 155 all out in 51.2 overs.

That left York 58 overs to reach their target. In the end, they needed only a third of them.

Although Dan Wilson was lbw to Parkin-Coates for 11 with the score at 34 in the sixth over, Duncan Snell and Simon Mason treated the four bowlers used by Doncaster with disdain.

Their unbroken partnership of 124 came in only 47 minutes.

Mason scored 75 not out, off 41 balls with 16 fours and a six, while Snell reached 68 not out, off 56 balls with 12 fours and a six.

The game was all over by 4.30pm as York rapped out a convincing title warning to their rivals.