AS England continued to do battle with Pakistan in the first test match of the series at Lords helpless as Mohammed Yousuf displayed incredible concentration on his way to a magnificent double century there were plenty of valiant attempts to emulate the tourists in the Middlesex League.

Stanmore suffered their first defeat for some time as they narrowly lost to a Brondesbury side in fine fettle.

Brondesbury won the toss and decided to bowl. Wijesuryia (49) and Ranasinghe (53) were Stanmore's largest contributors as the visiting side spluttered to a below par total of 216-10.

Brondesbury's opener Tim Simpson (108) was in superb nick and played an ideal openers innings, as he anchored his side to victory despite the best attempts of Stanmore's M Bhatt to stem the flow of runs. Bhatt finished the day with figures of 7-66, but it wasn't enough for Stanmore to avoid a one wicket defeat.

There was another centurian as Wembley beat Enfield at the weekend. John O'Neill-Fuller seems to have a knack of always being in the runs at the moment and is consistently Wembley's highest scorer. This weekend he smashed a memorable 150, as his side overcame a respectable target of 245 which was set for them by Enfield. But if O'Neill-Fuller is Wembley's on-form batsman, then there is no doubt that Rob Bell is Wembley's magician with the ball and this weekend was no different as he helped himself to the scalps of six Enfield batsman for only 70 runs as his side won the contest by five wickets.

Harrow, however, were not so fortunate as they travelled to South Hampstead. Harrow won the toss and decided to bat, with Sean Ongers (53) ending as their highest scorer as Harrow manged to scramble towards 225 all out.

South Hampstead were aided with the ball with a fine display from Joydeep Mukajee who claimed figures of 5-56.

In reply, South Hampstead were led from the front by opener Ben Moore (74) and supported in the middle order by James Williams (44) as they secured a three wicket victory.