Swindells stars in Ivanhoe draw

There were strong showings from Leicestershire players as Leicester Ivanhoe and Barrow Town played out a rain-affected draw in the Everards Premier Division.

Academy duo Harry Swindells (74) and Sam Evans (48) were in fine form for Ivanhoe alongside James Kirkham (59 not out) and Steven Punchard (46) as the team scored a commanding 260-5.

Rob Sayer, who had highly economical figures of 10-1-29-0, then made an unbeaten 49 for Barrow. Jayshal Chauhan chipped in with 31 while fellow Academy player Jack Gilford picked up two wickets for Ivanhoe.

The performance marked a good week for Swindells, who spent some time on the field as a wicket-keeper for the First XI against Kent when Niall O’Brien left the field due to injury.

Another Leicestershire half-centurion was James Sykes but his Lutterworth side had a losing draw in another truncated fixture against Rothley Park.

The home side claimed 17 points after reaching 211-7 in reply to Lutterworth’s 251. Sykes and Ollie Pickering each made 57 for Lutterworth, and the slow left armer went to claim 1-42 off eight overs.

Atif Sheikh earlier bowled ten overs for Rothley Park, opening the bowling alongside former Leicestershire bowler Charles Dagnall.

Tom Wells played his part as Loughborough Town recorded an excellent victory at Kibworth. Sunny Patel was again in good touch for the hosts, following up his unbeaten century on week one with 87 . Wells returned figures of 10-0-37-0 as part of Loughborough restricting Kibworth to 205-9.

Loughborough MCCU wicket-keeper Charlie Lowen (56) and Rishi Patel (46) made important contributions while Wells scored 21 as Town won by three wickets.

Matthew Boyce’s Barkby United were celebrating their first win following promotion after a five-wicket verdict against Sileby Town.

Ian Kirk and Rob Townsend each claimed three wickets as Sileby were bowled out for 124 and Tom Flowers (45) and Aiden Morris (33*) helped to guide the side to a five-wicket success.

Two sides to get full 30-point hauls were Market Harborough and Syston Town. Joe Kendall (81) and Tom Leonard (64) posted half-centuries a Harborough scored 240-6 before Kevin Innes, Josh Bott and Michael Pozerskis took three wickets apiece as Hinckley Town/CCA were dismissed for 135.

A solid score of 233-5 was posted by Syston after contributions of Umar Razzaq (55) Amer Nazir (49) and Charlie Taylor (47 not out). Earl Shilton were dismissed for 91 after George Corbett (3-17), Carl Fourie (3-13), Zahir Taher (2-13) and Razzaq (2-22) shared the wickets.