Dunnington further increased their lead at the top of the Hunters York and District Senior Cricket League premier division as they became the first club to reach the 300-point mark.

With their closest rivals all drawing - in fact Clifton Alliance were the only other team in the top-flight managing to secure a victory on Saturday - Dunnington are well on course.

On a day when wickets throughout the league were generally more suited to batting, Pickering's first innings total of 178 looked to be a little short of the mark, given the usual strength of the home side's batting line-up.

Chris Nicholls, with 58, Mark Shephard, who fell one run short of his half-century, and Craig Aconley with 31, all made valuable contributions, in the face of the miserly bowling of Steve Precious and Hamid Khan, who both took four victims at a cost of less than 40 runs.

However, despite an even more niggardly return of 4-26 from Garry Smith, Collis King came back into the side to hit 66, with Harwood Williams adding 37 and Khan completing a good all-round performance with 43, to give the home side a three-wicket win.

Clifton, meanwhile, who had started the day three places below their opponents, Woodhouse Grange, caught their visitors rather on the hop.

Simon Dwyer led the way with 94 runs in the Alliance total of 209 all out, as another of the division's overseas players, Kashif Raza, enjoyed the first part of his all-round contribution to the day's events by taking 5-70.

He then returned to score 61 in the second innings, but with Pete Head the only other Grange batsmen to feature, the innings closed at 132 with all ten batsmen being caught. James Postill benefited by taking four of those victims for just 31 runs as his team swapped places in the division with the side that they had just beaten.

Second-placed Acomb lost ground on the leaders when they travelled East to Beverley.

Andy Tute (31), Shanuka Dissanayake (33) and Neil Hinde (30) all got started, but were unable to convert, and the York side's innings ended on 178-9.

The task proved too much for the Beverley batsmen, who, despite a useful 44 from Andy Burton, settled for the draw at 135-6. Gurinda Singh made 25 and Richard Taylor 29 not out, as David Sykes picked up three wickets.

Heworth maintained their third place with the division's highest score of 218-4, in which David Simpson (108) was also the division's only centenarian of the day. Heworth's Pakistani signing, Shahid Khan (48), just missed out on a half-century.

In reply, Pocklington also earned themselves maximum batting points as Aussie Nathan Schultz scored 68 not out, while David Ogram and Kevin Hinch both made 45.

But yet again it was an overseas all-rounder who made one of the most telling contributions, as Khan took 3-66 to help restrict Pockling-ton to 201-7 and leave them firmly at the bottom of the pile.

Thirsk and Sheriff Hutton Bridge exchanged tenth and 11th positions, as both teams had the worst of draws at home against Easingwold and Osbaldwick respectively.

Despite four wickets for Barry Petty, bowling his customary 25 overs, and three for Richard Bentley, the Thirsk attack allowed Easingwold to set a challenging target of 196-8, with Martin Piercy (65) hitting a second consecutive half-century, and Paul Skilbeck (62) and Jonathan Marwood (38) also getting in on the act.

Des Wyrill (51no) then scored the game's third half-century, while Neil Stephenson (34) and skipper Dave Greenlay (31) kept the score ticking over, but Paul Redshaw (3-28) and Paul Skilbeck (3-38) both bowled with economy and Thirsk were slowed to 158-7.

A six-wicket haul for Paul Oldfield in the Osbaldwick innings ensured that Sheriff Hutton Bridge would have a rather lower target to chase than Thirsk's when it became their turn to bat.

Andy Hall, Ian Wilson and Dave Thompson all scored 30s in the first innings total of 167, but, with Damian Aston (6-40) and Dave Thompson (3-53) picking up all the wickets to fall, Bridge were then fortunate to hold out for the draw at 115-9.

Updated: 12:02 Monday, July 15, 2002