Spalding Town climb up the table despite suffering defeat against struggling Skegness

Despite becoming the first team to lose to Skegness in the Lincs ECB Premier League on Saturday, Spalding Town actually moved up a place in the standings.

Rock-bottom Skegness, who had lost all 16 of their previous matches this season, chased down Spalding’s score of 232-9 with just two balls remaining of their 50 overs to win by three wickets.

The seasiders had earlier won the toss and put Town into bat, allowing Jon Manton (86) and Nilantha Atapattu (52) to score nicely and put the visitors into a strong position with plenty of runs on the board.

However, despite Atapattu taking 4-53, Skegness made 233-7 in their reply with Josh Greeff (66) and Tom Adlington (56) on-song.

Spalding’s performance at least gave them eight bonus points, which saw them jump above Nettleham and Louth into ninth place.

Town are now seven games without a win, but at least put in a strong performance with the bat.

Having been put in by their hosts, Manton and Mitch Freeman (18) made a solid start before the latter was bowled by Greeff (2-44) with the score on 46.

Ollie Dring (7) and Josh Lawrence (0) then went quickly as Henry Sanderson (3-45) picked up two wickets in as many balls.

Manton and skipper Chris Dring (18) steadied the ship with a 53-run stand for the fourth wicket, but Sanderson eventually broke that with the wicket of the latter.

An even better partnership followed, however, with Atapattu joining Manton and the pair adding 61.
Manton scored 11 fours in his 131-ball knock, before Vineeth Venugopalan (1-45) dismissed him 14 short of a well-deserved century.

Ethan Lawrence (11) and Brandon Andrews (4) came and went before Atapattu departed, scoring 52 from 57 balls with six fours.

In reply, Skeg lost skipper Norman Brackley for a four-ball duck as Atapattu struck early.

Two other early wickets went down, but a 110-run partnership between Greef and Adlinton proved the difference. And, when both of them departed, Qaiser Iqbal (36 not out from 21 balls) provided the fireworks to complete the chase.

Andrews (1-50), Freeman (1-25) and Josh Lawrence (1-47) were the other wicket-takers for Town.

Next up for Spalding is a home derby against seventh-placed Market Deeping at Seas End Hall on Saturday (11.30pm).