Blackheath CC's 1st XI recovered from defeats to Beckenham (league) and Bromley (cup) the previous weekend with a relatively comfortable win away at Folkestone. Despite a revenge of sorts away at Bromley in the national 20/20 on Wednesday night, the victory was important to get the Club's league campaign back on track, and they find themselves back at the summit of the Kent League Division One as a consequence of the victory and Whitstable's failure to beat Beckenham.

Chris Willetts lost another toss and Folkestone elected to bat first on a firm wicket and in ideal batting conditions. The new ball pair of Ruel Brathwaite and Paul Valkovics bowled with searing pace and no little discipline to reduce Folkestone to 31-3 at the 15 over mark. Despite a 46 run partnership for the 4th wicket Blackheath were content with Folkestone's progress. The south coast club were going at a little over 2 runs per over when the 30th over clicked around on the scorebox, their overseas player apparently happy to anchor the innings and request his younger partners took some chances to break the shackles imposed by Blackheath's new-look spin attack of Dipayan Paul and Richard Woods.

It took four consecutive maidens around the 30 over mark to spark Folkestone into life but they were still kept in check, particularly by the irrepressible Woods who finished with impressive figures of 13 overs, 3 maidens, 4 wickets for 23 runs including that of the sensitive Folkestone overseas player. Woods and skipper Chris Willetts finished off the innings as Folkestone were all out off the last ball for a well-below par 149.

The Blackheath reply started positively in the face of some indifferent bowling, Zobie Sharif looking particularly commanding in the opening overs.

As was expected, the introduction of spin changed the complexion of the chase and the Folkestone overseas player bowled his 15 overs off the reel on a wearing pitch to good effect, removing 4 Blackheath wickets in the process. Included in that haul was Zobie Sharif who continued his good form with a solid 60.

Skipper Chris Willetts joined Jahid Ahmed with 40 runs required and restored some calm to proceedings as the pair eased past their opponents total with little more incident of note and a little over 11 overs remaining.

Any run chase is a good victory and with Whitstable and Sibton Park both losing, Blackheath now head into the second half of the season in top spot.