Campbell stars with bat and ball as Kimberley thrash champions to move to the brink of title glory
Kimberley Institute have one hand firmly on this year’s Nottinghamshire Premier League title after Matthew Campbell’s superb all-round display helped them thump reigning champions Cavaliers & Carrington by 114 runs.
Campbell top-scored with 86 in Kimberley’s innings and then took six wickets to fire them to a 16th win out of 16 this summer.
Institute are now 30 points clear at the top with six games left to play, meaning three more wins – and it may need less than that – will make them champions.
After winning the toss and batting, Kimberley made a bad start when losing Harrison Parker to the second ball of the match.
However, the champions-elect responded immediately with a second-wicket stand of 189 between Campbell (86) and Rob Sutton (69) before further contributions from Harry Burnhill (20), Dilhan Cooray (27) and George Bacon (28) took Kimberley to 304 all out in 47.3 overs.
Faizan Saleem (4-81) and Dominic Brown (3-36) led the Cavaliers bowling and Brown also impressed with the bat with 48no in Cavaliers’ reply.
But the rest had no answer to Campbell, who claimed 6-53 as the home side were bowled out for 190 in 37 overs.
Defeat compounded the misery for Cavaliers, who have dropped down to fifth in the table after also being with a 16-point penalty deduction.
Cuckeny are now Kimberley’s nearest challengers after they beat third-placed Hucknall.
Other results: Attenborough 288 all out, lost to Notts & Arnold Amateur 313-8, by 25 runs; Clipstone 176-6, beat Caythorpe 174 all out, by four wickets; Cuckney 202-2, beat Hucknall 200-6, by eight wickets; Mansfield Hosiery Mills 296-6, beat Wollaton 200 all out, by 96 runs; Papplewick & Linby 237-4, beat Collingham & District 236 all out, by six wickets.
League success was not matched in the cup the following day for Kimberley as they went down by 81 runs at Derbyshire side Spondon in the quarter-final of the Beechwood Used Car Centre Premier Cup.
Matthew Campbell (3-33) helped reduce Spondon to 122-6 at one point, before a seventh-wicket stand of 92 between Isaac Harrison (73no) and Joe Ashdown (39) got them to 214-7 in their 40 overs.
Harrison Parker (30), Ron Sutton (26) and Harry Burnhill (25) looked to have Kimberley’s reply on course at 119-3.
But a collapse followed as they lost their last seven wickets for just 41 – despite 38 from Dilhan Cooray – to be all out for 160 in 33.4 overs, Ashdown the pick of the Spondon bowlers with 4-22.