Enfield maintained their good Middlesex League form by getting the better of a high-scoring draw against Division Two leaders Stanmore at Lincoln Road on Saturday.

Enfield invited their visitors to bat first and, after an early breakthrough by Faisal Mir (1-19), they were made to work hard by an opposing side unbeaten in the league.

Half-centuries for Steven Reingold (60), Grant Reingold (51) and Rishi Pandya (51) all helped Stanmore compile a challenging target.

The spin duo of Dan Amedee (3-103) and Aamir Ihsan (2-79) - making his debut for the club - bowled well in tandem, picking up five wickets between them.

Stanmore opted to bat the maximum allowed 55 overs before declaring on 261-7, meaning their received 45 overs in return.

In reply, a superb opening spell by Rashid Mullazadah (4-44), supported by Stanmore’s Australian overseas opening bowler Saul Anstey (2-50), initially left Enfield struggling at 42-3 with an out-of-sorts Jack Plumb (11), Les Edwards (25) and Rehan Hassan (0) all back in the pavilion.

However, an excellent 134-run partnership between Ayush Sahota (71) and Sam Smyth (80) brought the game back into the balance.

Sahota’s fine knock was ended by a yorker from Mullazadah, while Smyth’s composed and well-crafted innings was ended short of a deserved century.

Captain Kyal Bacchus-Brown (15 not out) then steadied the ship, and ensured Enfield secured the bonus points on offer for the faster scoring rate, ultimately finishing on 219-6 from 45 overs as they closed the gap at the top to just three points.

Winchmore Hill suffered a disappointing day as they went down to a nine-wicket defeat at the hands of Harrow St Marys.

Having been put into bat, Hill recovered from the early loss of Morgan Prior (1) with three on the board as Sam Weller (42) and Jim Gatting (23) put on 51 for the next wicket.

With the exception of captain De La Rey Terblanche (32) though, no other Winchmore batsman was to score more than 15 as they subsided to 166 all out.

Harindu Gunasekara (4-31) was the pick of the Harrow attack, with the other six wickets shared between Kaleb Antony Auld (3-42) and Chris Brown (3-48).

Hill needed early wickets if they were to have a chance of defending the low total, but Aaman Soni (35) and Pritesh Vaghela put on 70 before the former was caught by Chris Richards off the bowling of Gatting (1-15).

Vaghela was to go on and make and an unbeaten 76 and number three Syed Khawar Ali Kazmi (52 not out) also reached his half-century before the winning line was passed after 41.2 overs to leave Winchmore fourth-from-bottom of the table.

Southgate are a place and two points higher in the table after they contrived to be blown away for just 52 in a low-scoring clash with Osterley.

Southgate would have fancied their chances after Pranay Rathod’s 4-61 helped dismiss their opponents for 118 in 30 overs.

But the visitors never got close to challenging that total as they finished on the end of a 66-run defeat.