Tim's ton keeps Copdock on top

TIM Percival hit a vital century for Copdock and Old Ipswichian as they maintained their strong bid for the Hargreaves Two Counties Championship title.

Copdock maintained their lead with a convincing victory over Sudbury despite losing their last eight wickets for just 22 runs.

It was Percival's second century of the season against Sudbury and allowed them to post a total of 227, which they were able to defend to stay top.

Simon Halliday (39) and Shaun Adam (21) contributed to the Sudbury run chase but without enough support they fell 78 runs short.

Second placed Exning kept up the pressure with a 57-run win over Browns. But the west Suffolk side would have been in trouble without the efforts of the Catley brothers Tim (74) and Matt (55) who stopped an early order collapse to steer their side to a respectable 229.

Tim Catley returned with the ball to cause more damage as Browns fell well short of their target. Catley took three for 48 but the real damage was done by David Werthmann with five for 37.

The sadness of Achilles playing their final match before their Stone Lodge Lane ground goes over to development was eased slightly by the win over East Bergholt in Division Four.

Achilles see this season out by playing their final three league matches away and then have to set about the task of finding a new ground in the Ipswich area for next season.

They totalled 202 for five with a half century from long-standing skipper Eddie Green and the target was far too much for Bergholt who finished 84 runs short

Tattingstone continued their successful season with an impressive victory over Frinton to move them into fourth place in Division One.

It follows a comfortable win over second-placed Exning last week and skipper Adrian Stockton is pleased with the progress his side has made since they won promotion to the top division last year.

"I'm more than happy with our season as we set out to obtain a mid-table position and we've done that with three games to spare," he explained.

"We've also reached the semi-finals of the Suffolk Cup, the final of the Two Counties Plate, and we've won our group in the Sunday Challenge.

"The main factor of our success has been our excellent team spirit. Most sides have three or four batsmen and three or four bowlers, but we all contribute. We're basically only a village club side, so it's been a tremendous season."

That team spirit was on show as they successfully chased a challenging Frinton total of 252, to which Tony Stubbs (86) was the main contributor.

In their reply Chris Bell hit 89 off 109 balls, and Stockton himself scored a half century.

With five overs remaining Tattingstone still required 40 to win, a target that was never going to be easy until Mark Sproats blasted them to victory, hitting 27 off the 46th over. It's that time of the season when captains demand a little bit extra from their players in one final push for success and on Saturday there were some other great individual performances.

Despite Felixstowe's dire position at the bottom of the table they are not prepared to go down without a fight.

This was highlighted by their amazing ninth wicket partnership of 92 in 15 overs against Braintree.

Chasing 215, Felixstowe were in trouble at 75 for eight when Keith Wright joined Mark Tasker at the crease to blitz the visitors bowling with some immaculate timing.

The 50 partnership came up in seven overs, and Tasker completed his 50 with his fourth straight six, but it was not to be as the outstanding effort was ended when Tasker was caught at long-on, and Felixstowe ended 48 runs short.

Any combination of three from Felixstowe, Ipswich and East Suffolk, Frinton and Sudbury could find themselves playing Second Division cricket next season.

Mistley look certain to go in the other direction but they still need 32 points to take the Division Two title after slipping-up against Bury St Edmunds seconds.

Very few of the promotion and

relegation issues have been decided so the final three games of the 2001 season should provide a great deal of interest and excitement.