Kilmington go into Saturday’s (August 11) top-of-the-table showdown at home to Sidmouth 2nds in confident mood after they chalked up a 12th victory in 14 C Division East starts, claiming a 125-run win on their visit to Alphington.

Once again, the star of the Kilmington batting effort was Tom Gooding, who cracked a magnificent unbeaten 170 as Kilmington powered to 348-3 at a sun-kissed Chronicles ground in Exeter.

His latest innings takes Gooding to just over 900 league runs this season and his average is now 101!

Billy Reed registered the ‘best of the rest’ with a knock of 53. When the Alphas batted, they clearly did not think they were up to a run chase and closed on 223-6; Rob Crabb took 2-35 for Kilmington.

Kilmington skipper Brett Garner said: “It was another masterclass from Tom [Gooding] though, to be honest; we are ribbing him about his batting now becoming boring!

“Joking apart, he is in such great form and we, as a team, have now scored over 1,100 runs in the last three games alone!”

As for the fact that his team missed out on a maximum points haul, they banked 18 of the 20, Garner said: “In hindsight maybe I should have stuck them in as we’d have had a total to chase, but it is what it is and we are still in the race and, let’s face it, we are no in a situation where if we win our last four games then we are going to be finishing top and we’ll be in the B Division next season.”

Kilmington go into Saturday’s meeting with Sidmouth 2nds trailing them by just five points, which means the side winning this game will sit top with only three matches in the campaign to play.

Kilmington expect to be at full strength for the game and skipper Garner says of the contest: “Hand on heart, I am really not sure what sort of a game it will be. Clearly there is plenty riding on it.

“I am not sure whether I’d bat or bowl first.

“I guess it will be down to one of those ‘spur of the moment’ decisions and, as for the game, whoever plays best on the day will surley get their just rewards.”