Little Marlow climbed to fourth in Division Three of the Morrant Chilterns Cricket League after thrashing Pinkneys Green by 118 runs on Saturday.

The hosts were looking for a response after last weekend’s nine wicket defeat against Chalfont St Giles and they made amends in superb fashion after being put into bat.

Openers Arfan Sharif and Steve Shore got the home side off to a solid start, putting on 61 before the former mistimed a drive and was caught having made 28.

Mohammed Yaqoob added only four runs to the total before he picked out backward point, brining Tahir Rashid to the crease alongside Shore.

The pair steadied the ship but once the opener departed for 46 a middle order collapse ensued with Rashid (38), Tom Lathey (13) and Pavan Kumar (0) all departing quickly to leave the score at 155-7.

However, Rob Mason (19) stuck around alongside Farooq Hussain (50) to move the score on to 228 before the latter became the last man to fall shortly after reaching his half century.

Little Marlow closed on 232-9 from 52 overs and they soon set about defending their total, ripping the visitors batting line-up apart after Kumar had broken a promising opening partnership of 35.

The off-spin of Sharif then snaffled two wickets before stand-in skipper Jack Goss got his first wicket of the match to reduce Pinkneys to 64-4.

A superb spell from Andrew St Maur returned figures of 3-15 and Yaqoob helped himself to the last two wickets as the away team were skittled out for 114 in the 31st over.