Coleshill went 10 points clear at the top of Division 7 East on Saturday thanks to a combination of previous leaders Leamington Khalsa suffering a surprise home defeat to Bedworth 3rds, and Coleshill securing victory by four wickets at the picturesque venue of Barby Cricket Club.

The home side who had been struggling near the foot of the division elected to bat on winning the toss, having made claims that their player availability had been a struggle this week.

Coleshill’s bowling opened as ever with Ammo Sandhu and Ibrahim Khan, making his first team debut having impressed in the early weeks of the season in the 2nds.

Ammo struck in the third over when opener Unwin was perhaps unlucky to be adjudged LBW with the score on 6. This brought home captain Richard Thompson to the crease and what turned out to be the biggest stand of the innings (41) with the other opener Ramaswamy got underway.

Ibrahim produced the delivery to break the stand for his first senior wicket and again LBW was the magic method as Ramasamy fell for 16 in the fourteenth over.

Thompson was joined by Steven Blanks, who after twelve deliveries was coincidentally bowled for a duck living up to his name, as Matt Hill had joined the attack replacing Ammo. Meanwhile the fourth wicket came in the form of a run out as Devaney departed for 6 off the bowling of Mumtaz Yakoob.

13-year-old youngster Sujithkumar Balamurali was next in, and with plenty of advice from his captain at the other end, managed to occupy the crease for over ten overs but struggled to score runs, whilst Thompson approached his half century.

Khuram Hussain was then brought into the attack and immediately struck with a wicket maiden by bowling Balamurali for 5 which started a run of three wickets in as many overs when Hill had Thompson caught for 51 before Morgan became the third LBW victim without scoring to Hussain leaving the hosts at 92/7.

A 28 stand for the eighth wicket held things up until Sandhu took two more wickets on his return to finish with 3/22 before Atif Suleman bowled the last man to end the innings on 126.

Coleshill’s reply also started with an early wicket as Asam Shazad was caught with the score on 9. Debutant Ahmer Shah impressed briefly alongside solid contributions from Anser Mahmood and Mumtaz Yakoob to put Coleshill in a dominant position at 64/2 off just ten overs.

Victory looked a formality until a dramatic batting collapse occurred in the 70’s as the aforementioned Yakoob and Mahmood were both bowled by Blanks before both skipper David Phillips and Suleman both fell cheaply leaving Coleshill starting to panic on 84/6.

Thankfully there were no further alarms as 15-year-old Sheragha Ahmadzai, alongside Hill, smashed three incredible maximums on his way to 25no from 10 deliveries giving Coleshill their 24-point haul just after 5pm.

Next week Coleshill play host to bottom of the table Nether Whitacre, in what is always a fiercely contested local derby. They will hope to cement their place at the top of the table and continue their fine start to the season.