Oakfield Parkonians sealed a 40-run victory over Southend-on-Sea to bounce back from defeat to Gidea Park & Romford the previous week.

Parks lost the toss and were asked to bat first on a used pitch that looked like it would offer a lot to the spinners later on.

At 36-3 this brought skipper Paran Kalley to the crease to bat with Paresh Kalley (76).

Paran came in and scored quickly for his 47, both batsmen putting the pressure back onto the bowlers and when he was out the score was 134-4 after the two Kalley boys put on 98 runs off just 15 overs.

With plenty of overs left Parks were looking to go onto the attack and get well past 200 which wouldn't have been an easy chase.

However, the next three batsmen all got ducks and Parks went from 134-4 to 161 all out - losing six wickets in nine overs.

Parks started off well in the field, getting three wickets inside the first 12 overs as Anujan Thiru (8-1-25-2) bowled well.

Thiru was well partnered by Selvam Ramasamy (4-28), who picked up one wicket in his opening spell but then was brought back later on and blew the tail away.

Ravi Raval (4-30) was playing his first game in a few weeks and getting the ball to absolutely rag and seemed unplayable.

This was a good win for Parks, the first 25-point success of the season, and they now look ahead to Harlow Town at home next week.

The seconds suffered an 83-run defeat to Woodford Wells, while the thirds sealed a narrow two-wicket win over Billericay.


Parks started well with Jigar Desia (4-36) once again setting the standard, bowling excellent lines and lengths with a hint of swing.

A mini partnership started to form until leg spin twins Zubair Raja (1-27) and Praven Sureshan (3-21) used the turning pitch to their advantage.

Some good death bowling from Jigar and Nimanka De Silva help restrict Billericay to 205.

Parks didn't start their reply off well, losing Chetan Patel (12) and Krishan DilipKumar (0) and bringing Reuben Chandy (35) to the crease.

But Matthew Holland (36*) and Zuabir Raja (11*) helped finish off run chase with 2.2 overs to spare.

The fifths beat Ilford by 112 runs in their latest fixture.