Ilford Catholic suffered a big 231-run defeat against a very talented and strong Basildon side who are now top of Division One.

Catholic asked the hosts to bat and it was clear from the first over it was going to be a long afternoon in the field as opener Yannick Leonard (110), an A grade player from the West Indies, crashed two blistering drives to the cover boundary.

He raced to a half century in no time, while at the other end his partner hardly scored a run, and made a faultless century before drinks.

Wickets from Ruhul Chowdhury and Nimi Quereshi hardly slowed the run rate and the home side closed on an imposing 367-4.

Openers Louis Morgan and Dave Hobbs put together the biggest opening stand (33) for the side this year before Morgan (25) fell to an excellent diving slip catch.

A flurry of runs from Chowdhury (37) came, but batting points seemed a long way away. Not all was lost however, as John Rogers (25*) joined skipper Liam Mulholland (15*), and the pair defended stoutly, picking up a vital batting point.

The seconds also suffered defeat as they lost by 48 runs to Stock in their latest fixture.

Skipper Balamurugan Rajagopal asked Stock to bat and Catholic’s bowlers started off well, however skipper Rizwan Ashraf (59), Michael Green (28) and Jack Williams (19*) posted 162.

Lingam Ramaswamy (3-25) and Adam Tanveer (2-25) scalped key wickets along with debutant Lokesh Makwane (2-34).

In reply, Ramaswamy (22), Sanjay Agnihotri (37) and Siva Venkatesan (15) kept the scoreboard ticking, but the lower middle order fell rapidly, 48 runs short of the target.

The thirds saw their match called off due to their opponents self-isolating while the fourths sealed a victory over Tillingham.

After winning the toss, Tillingham decided to bowl first and struck in the very first over, removing both openers, reducing Catholics to 0-2.

Hariharan Perumal Rajan (20) and Ragesh Rangaswamy (46) steadied the innings before both were caught at extra cover.

Mark Phillips (13) and Sudhakar Ranganathan (22) kept the score going in the middle order, followed by Annanth Kumar (69) and Jagannathan Soundarajan (19) to take the total to 215.

Tillingham started well and were 100-1 at drinks, but excellent bowling by Tariq Noori (2-3), Ranganathan (3-3) and A Kumar (13-1) brought Ilford Catholic back into the game as Tillingham were reduced to 132-9.