HOOK and Newnham Basics maintained their Southern League Division One title push, with an emphatic seven wicket win over visiting OTs and Romsey.

The visitor’s won the toss and elected to bat, on a very good track, and with just two runs on the scoreboard, opener Charlie King was run out.

After the early set back, Romsey hit back as Richard Lake (23) and Iain Goodall (40) moved the score to 49-1.

However, spin king Aniket Divecha (3-31) ended the partnership worth 47, thanks to a catch from Jordan Hobday.

With just one more run added, Rob Newman departed as Ben Thane (1-12) snapped up a wicket.

The Hobday and Divecha combination struck again, as Harry Turk was the fourth man out with 59 scored.

The visitors thanks to top scorer Goodall added 19 to their total, before losing two more wickets.

Stuart Shapland was trapped leg before by Divecha and then Kevin Poulter, who had really mean figures of 7-4-9-2, bowled Goodall.

Captain Keith Trodd added valuable runs batting at number eight, but Kieran Thomson (3-10) from 16 balls ripped through the tail, as Romsey were all out for 110, in the 36th over.

The home side lost the early wicket of Thane (4) being caught by King off the bowling of Steve Smith (1-29).

It was left to impressive teenagers Kieran Thomson (32) and Harry Came (42) to build the foundation of the winning score.

They added 64 for the second wicket, before Thomson was stumped by Trodd as Jody Brown (2-18) snapped up the first of his two wickets.

The same bowler struck again, seven runs later, to dismiss Came, but skipper Matt Love and Jordan Hobday saw Hook home with 18 overs to spare.

Romsey’s Shapland was the pick of their bowlers with a fine nine over spell which yielded just 14 runs.

After the game, a delighted Hook captain Love said: “It was a fantastic win. I would have batted first for sure if I had won the toss, as it was a really nice deck. We have bowled and fielded well and KP (Kevin Poulter) is just getting better every game.

“I was happy with the way we batted, the teenagers were great and when Jordy (Jordan Hobday) joined me I just said to him lets see this home, which we did.”

Next for Hook is a tricky away game at Liphook next weekend, but they are now right in the title race, just two points behind new leaders Sarisbury in second spot.