No stopping Lions Lod, first wins for Tel Aviv and Young Ashdod

Magnificent hundred - Eshkol Solomon scored 103 for Lions Lod © Israel Cricket

In a full weekend of matches in Division 1, another ruthless performance from Lions Lod brought them a 164-run victory over Ashdod A, Tel Aviv easily beat Be'er Sheva A by 8 wickets, and in a close finish, Young Ashdod showed plenty of character to defeat Ra'anana by 2 wickets. Ramle continued their impressive run, defeating the Negev Academy 1 in a Division 2 fixture.

Eshkol Solomon (103) and Isaac Massil (82) produced a tremendous batting display after coming to the crease with their team in early trouble having lost two early wickets. Their partnership was worth 185, with Solomon reaching his first league century, and Massil playing a captain's knock despite suffering from a back injury. Lions reached 246 although it may have been worse for the home team had Menashe Wadhawker (3 for 43) not grabbed three middle order wickets after off spinner Dani Malyanker had removed Solomon and Massil.

Action from the Young Ashdod - Ra'anana match © Israel Cricket

Joel Rubin was in a fighting spirit for Ashdod, but his 33 was the only significant contribution in a woeful batting display. David Massil (4 for 36) and Isaac Massil (3 for 23) steamed through the top order, as Ashdod were bowled out for 82.

The early wicket of George Sheader, excellently stumped by Zion Chepulkar off Stanley Perlman, set the tone for a miserable Be'er Sheva innings in their match against Tel Aviv on Friday. Perlman was in the action soon afterwards again, pulling off a trademark catch at slip to remove Yona Malekar off Sanjay Gupta. Although they did show brief middle order resistance, the home side were dismissed for just 104 in 24 overs. Paul Thomas (52*) and and Shai Shmuel (24*) added 80 for the 3rd wicket, after Perlman and Gupta had fallen early, the latter to a magnificent catch by Sheader at backward square leg, to take Tel Aviv to victory.

Swing king - Young Ashdod's Aby Aston amongst the wickets © Israel Cricket

A top order collapse against excellent swing bowling from Abe Aston (2 for 16) left Ra'anana in tatters at 23 for 4 against Young Ashdod on Friday. Adrian Vard (40) and Rafi Zauer (22) added 63 for the 5th wicket, and Robert Cohen chipped in 25 not out to take Ra'anana to a score of 168, which at one stage seemed unattainable. Young Ashdod came out all guns blazing, with Solly Moses taking 10 off the first over, but seemed to be intent on self destruction as a steady procession of batsman lofted catches to the waiting fielders. At 117 for 8 the game was wide open, but Efraim Gerrard (33*) and Viju Deo (19*) batted extremely responsibly to slowly steer their team to a deserved victory, and leave Ra'anana pondering a poor performance in all departments.

In a dramatic Division 2 game in Dimona on Saturday, Ramle quick bowler Samuel Borgarkar asked plenty of questions of the Negev Academy batsman, with none of them providing any answers. Borgarkar took 6 wickets for just 12 runs, bowling out the Academy for just 71. However, the game was not as one sided as may have been expected. The Academy showed plenty of innovation and spirit, opening the bowling with their two spinners, Ronen Waskar and Solomon Varsulkar, who both got amongst the wickets to have Ramle four down for just 20 runs. However, Ramle recovered through Eliezer Samson (32*) to secure a 4-wicket win.