Lod, Ra'anana win in Premier League; Dimona C and Diamond CC also victorious

Lions Lod secured the league title with two matches still to play, beating Ashdod A by 82 runs in Ashdod. Batting first, Mahendra Jaiswar (52) provided the backbone to the Lod innings, with the rest of the top six batsmen, with the exception of Shalom Rubin (19), uncharacteristically failing to reach double figures. Janath Silva contributed 17, but it was left to number nine batsman Akhil (37) to take the total to 189. All three of the Ashdod spinners bowled well, especially off spinner Danny Malyankar who finished with 3 for 24.

At the interval Lod would have been happy to have reached the score that they did, Ashdod would have been thinking of what might have been had they managed to pick up the final two wickets sooner. But that soon all became irrelevant as the Massil brothers, David and Isaac, made up for missing out with the bat by performing with the ball. Together they removed the top five Ashdod batsmen for 24 runs between them. Ashdod skipper Hillel Awaskar was the only player to manage any sort of score. He played superbly to score a fighting 55 not out, with the next highest score being 11. David Massil continued his brilliant season with the ball, finishing with 4 for 32. Ashdod were all out for 107, and drop down to third in the table.

Tel Aviv remain at the bottom of the Premier League after losing to Ra'anana by 41 runs at Hadar Yosef on Friday. Ra'anana won the toss and having decided to bat, were given a solid start by Danny Hotz and Des Moss. Paul Thomas was introduced and soon found a way through Hotz's defence, sending the youngster on his way for 18 with the score on 37. Moss then proceeded to hit Thomas for two boundaries, followed by a six straight back over his head, before Thomas got his revenge by trapping him leg before wicket for 33. Adrian Vard was out to Frank Auger for 4, followed soon after by Gal Matz (7), leaving Ra'anana at 75 for 4. Worse was to follow with the score on 97, as Jason Ryker was bowled by Mike Mohnblatt for 13. Sammy Benjamin and Steven Shein slowly rebuilt the innings, patiently settling for one's and two's without taking any risks. Their partnership was worth 45 before Benjamin was stumped by Steve Leigh off Greenberg for a well played 36. Shein was bowled by Thomas for 23 as the innings drew to a close, finally ending on 183 for 9 with Yehuda Gordon not out on 20. Thomas finished with 3 for 48, Auger 3 for 36 and Greenberg 2 for 28.

If Tel Aviv were going to win the game much was going to depend on captain Stanley Perlman. Opening the innings, he smashed seven boundaries before, with his score on 32 and the total on 37, he was well caught by Gordon at backward square leg off Vard. Auger and Thomas took the score to 75, before Shein removed Auger for 17, and Danny Brill got the wicket of Steve Leigh (0) very next over. Tel Aviv were never able to recover from this double blow and although Thomas scored a brave 68 not out, carrying his bat through the innings, none of the other batsman were able to give him adequate support. Tel Aviv were all out for 142, with Vard (4 for 28) doing most of the damage.

Lions Be'er Sheva suffered their sixth straight defeat in Division 1, going down by 6 wickets to Dimona C in Dimona. Batting first, Be'er Sheva were all out for just 128. Only Raymond Waskar (28) and Moshe Saul (20) made any sort of contributions, as David Talkar (4 for 22) and his fellow Dimona bowlers proved too hot to handle. Dimona's reply wasn't without a few hiccups, as Be'er Sheva had them 100 for 4 at one stage. But they simply had failed to score enough runs, and Dimona sealed the win in the 21st over.

The Diamond Cricket Club jumped above the Negev Academy into second place in Division 2, following a 5-wicket win over the junior team at Hadar Yosef on Saturday. Shai Chayun (19), Raz Ben-Zaken (22), Bar Ilya (25) and Eliezer Yugadayev (20) all played useful innings for the visitors, but none could carry on and make a really big score against good Diamond bowling supported by excellent fielding. The result was that the Academy team completed their 45 overs on 152 for 7, which was never likely to be a defendable score. Anis Zaveri (46) and Dinesh (64) provided the bulk of the runs, and although they lost 5 wickets in the process of reaching their target, the win was achieved with more than 16 overs remaining.