Sovereign moved to the top of the North East London Cricket League with a win over Clapton & Oval – but Coach & Horses kept up the pressure with an easy victory against The Camel.

Sovereign won the toss and chose to bat, but quickly lost both of their openers as Jim O’Reilly struck twice to move to 2-18 after his spell of four overs.

After that point the innings began to pick up pace, with Ian Donatien making 30 at better than a run per ball, while Mark Stephney continued his good run of form with his third consecutive half-century in the league. Stephney was dropped early on but took advantage to score 58 from 49 deliveries.

Ishmail Matvad was the pick of the Clapton bowlers, finishing with 2-29 from his six overs.

It was the Sovereign’s sixth wicket partnership that saw them to a large total, as Luke Browne (42) and Ken Willock (90) put on 131 to see them to 264-5 from the 36 overs.

Clapton’s reply got off to a similarly slow start and, despite a knock of 42 from opener Nick Kelly and 50 from Amir Khan, there weren’t enough other contributions and they ended up on 200. The pick of the bowlers for the Sovereign were captain Nick Franks with 2-31 and Ian Donatien (2-34).

Meanwhile, at Springfield Park, Coach & Horses kept up the pressure on the league leaders with an impressive 86-run victory over The Camel.

Having won the toss and elected to bat, some tight controlled bowling from the Camel openers produced early success reducing the Coach to 20-3. An upset was on the cards, but was met by a match-winning innings from Coach stalwart Will Povey (58) who, ably assisted by impressive debutant Azaz Khalil (41), managed to stem the collapse and rebuild the innings before counter-attacking.

Povey’s innings built a platform for the Coach lower order to play their shots. Mason Jarratt (30), Chris Wood (30) and M Sharif (21) finished the innings with a flourish and contributed to a score of 222 off the allocated overs.

Camel were kept in check with some fine bowling as Coach seamers Mason Jarrett (1-37) and Robert Perrett (1-4) bowled a probing line and length.

Some lusty blows by the Camel No.4 Quinn Angove threatened a Camel recovery but he eventually succumbed to the guile and experience of off-spinner Taj Islam (1-39). The strength and depth of Coach bowling attack was demonstrated as Joe Ryrie (3-25) and Azaz Khalil (2-7) sealed the 86-run victory.

There was a feat from the batsmen at Hackney Marshes, with more than 500 runs shared between Renaissance Youth and London Fields.

Renaissance won the toss and decided to bat, with a massive 140-run stand for the second wicket the highlight of their eventual total of 291-9 – the highest team score of the season so far.

Tarak Elahi (90) was the star, ably supported by Monowar Hossain (50).

Fields weren’t intimidated, however, with captain David Miller capping off a strong all-round performance with 86 not out, to go with his two wickets from the Renaissance innings. Unfortunately for Fields, his effort was in vain, and they lost by 41 runs, finishing on 250-8 after 36 overs.