Javed's brilliance bamboozles leaders

The match was billed as a clash of the three Pakistanis (Javed and Lewes pair Kashif Ibrahim and Imran Khan) but Javed left his compatriots trailing in his wake with a destructive bowling spell immediately after a splendid innings with the bat.

Javed's heroics blew away the cobwebs from Sidley's first league reverse of the campaign to Bexhill the previous week and put them on the coattails of the promotion slots.

While eager to laud the performance of Javed, captain Scott Woodroffe was eager to extol the virtues of a staunch collective effort. He enthused: "It was Imran's day. He got hit on the wrist early on in his innings but he went on to hit a valuable 60 odd and without it we wouldn't have posted a total at all. We probably would have rolled over for 60 odd. He was definitely out to prove a point. Again Chris Deeprose bowled well and we just didn't let them get away for a second. Like the Littlehampton game if it hadn't been for Guy Montgomery taking a wicket at a vital time we probably wouldn't have won.

"It was a bit unexpected and it was a brilliant game to win. I didn't really expect to win it at tea - we just wanted to put up a good fist of it. Full credit to everyone who bowled - no-one gave anything away. We deserved to win, we were just outstanding."

Sidley won the toss and batted but immediately found themselves in trouble. Five of the top seven batsmen departed for single figure scores but Javed dug them out of a cavernous hole with a brilliant 68.

Tempers became frayed though when Sidley's Chris Deeprose, who kindly offered to field for Lewes after an injury to skipper Mike Murray, inadvertently dropped a steepling catch at long on off Javed towards the end. In a move that smacks of sour grapes, Lewes have filed a complaint to the league despite the fact that Deeprose probably saved them 20 or 30 runs.

The bad blood only served to fire up man of the match Javed even further and he wiped out the Lewes batting with the blistering figures of 6-25 off 17 high class overs.

He sent his Pakistani mates Khan and Ibrahim back to the pavilion for a duck and six respectively but Montgomery took the vital wicket of Beechey for 19 as he and Eborn (17) threatened to cut loose.

The tail was swept up with the minimum of fuss as