CONTINUING their good end-of-season form, Stocksfield earned a top half finish in Division A2 with victory on the final day.

Captain Dan Whiley batted through as he kept his head during a topsy turvy encounter with Seaton Burn, the Yorkshireman guiding the team to success with two wickets in hand.

Going into the game three games unbeaten, Whiley was in confident mood and put hosts Burn into bat first on a drying wicket. And the batting and bowling performance from the visitors was superb, wasting no time at all to have the home side struggling on 19-4.

James Tolchard was on fire and claimed the early wickets of Ali, Rashid Shad and Richie Kyle, with Emerson Brown (pictured), ending his long association with the club in favour of retirement, got his reward for a tight opening spell with the wicket of opener Craig Redpath. With the pressure on, Stocksfield turned to spinners Andrew Wood and Ryan Chamberlain to keep up the momentum, and Wood clean bowled Abhishek Bajaj with the score on 26-5.

Teenager Aaron Rourke was given the opportunity to bowl for the first team and grasped the chance to impress, a tight eight overs resulting in his first wicket when he had Christopher Weldon caught by Tris Douglas.

A 25-run partnership between Cliff Lyall and Andrew White took Burn close to the 100 mark, but both were run out with Lyall succumbing to an excellent direct hit from Douglas and White to a throw from Wood. By this time, Tolchard and Brown were back in the attack and they cleaned up the tail with an extra wicket apiece.

With Ben Archer and Luke Doneathy unavailable, Rob Thirlwell was promoted to open the batting but it was a moment to forget for the 18-year-old as he was caught by Weldon off White with the first ball of the reply.

Steven Henderson came in to join Whiley and they combined well to take the score to 62 before Henderson succumbed to the bowling of Jamie White. From there, the wickets started to tumble and Jonny Tobin, Douglas, Wood, Chamberlain, Paul Watson and Brown all lost their wickets without making their marks.

Luckily for them, Whiley was a cool head at the other end and was in fantastic form as he hit 11 fours on his way to 84 not out, joined in the end by Tolchard who blocked well to put the match-winning skipper into bat and avoid a disastrous defeat.