The tone of the match between Saffron Walden Cricket Club and Sawston & Babraham was set on the very first ball.

Walden paceman Ben Harris suffered a muscle strain and had to withdraw from bowling for the rest of the East Anglian Premier League game.

Jack Sneath and Ali Hancock (2-79), both only recently returned to the team from injury themselves, continued with pace and kept the run-rate down to four-an-over.

But wickets were elusive until spinner Sam Robinson (2-76) had the breakthrough wicket of Callum Guest (41).

Being a bowler down, part-time spinner Alex Pierson was called upon and took a wicket in his third over.

But he then took a fall fielding his own bowling, dislocating his shoulder and needing to be taken to hospital.

Sawston opener Wayne White (103) was finally taken caught-and-bowled by Hancock shortly after achieving his century, and after further wickets, Sawston declared on 316.

Walden did not get the positive start they would have liked.

Middle order batters, Harry Gallian (26) and Jack Sneath (48) steadied the ship, but the situation was looking bleak at 92-5 when the injured Harris came to the crease.

Exacerbating his injury with his first scoring shot, a sweep for four, a runner was called for.

But despite being in obvious pain, Harris was still able to score 65 off 59 balls, including seven fours and five sixes.

His battling could not secure even a draw but it did, along with a super ninth-wicket partnership of 36 runs between Oli Rae (31) and Hancock (11), bring valuable batting bonus-points.

The two clubs also met at second-team level, and Sawston were winners here too.

Walden lost the toss and were put into bat and although opener Sam Osborne was the pick of the batters with 37 runs, few others managed double figures.

The Walden opening bowlers started well with Cam Taylor getting 2-17 and taking the first wicket in the third over.

The rest of the bowling was kept economical for much of the innings but there were simply not enough runs on the board to defend and after the fall of the third wicket, Sawston batter Machado went to town with 39 runs off 15 balls to give them a seven wicket win.

The misery continued as the thirds were beaten by 68 runs away to Milton in the CCA Senior Division.

Wickets fell regularly with Henry Rodda, Jay Reader and Charlie Howle all taking two each but Milton still got to 195-8.

Walden's turn saw them within range of the required rate for most of the innings, but wickets fell too fluently and they ran out of batters, 10 overs before time.

Top run-scorer was 15-year-old Alexi Demitri-Foules with 36 off 45 balls. 

The fourths completed the set of defeats as they were outmatched by Thriplow.

Put in to bat, the team of predominantly academy youngsters only managed to amass 87 runs at the High School ground, with captain Ben Wiseman top-scoring on 30 runs.

The visitors knocked off the runs in 24.3 overs for the loss of no wickets.

Pick of the bowlers was U15 captain Bobbie Thurston.

It was back to winning ways for High Roding as they claimed a comfortable success against Basildon & Pitsea in the Mid Herts League.

Basildon won the toss and elected to bat and put up a reasonable score of 201-9.

Roding's bowlers shared the spoils with Josh O’Connor, Rory Burns and Sam South getting two each.

In reply Roding got off to a really strong start with Ben Chillingworth hitting 73 and O’Connor 50, the pair sharing a century partnership of 106 for the first wicket.

John Tasker added 28 and Tegid Thomas 21, pushing Roding towards the winning score which they reached in the 36th over.

It keeps them top of the table.

The seconds lost once again being bowled out for 129 and Basildon getting 132 for the loss of one wicket.

The thirds also lost chasing 246-5 from Hockerill, falling well short on 117.