A week after starting the season with a bang Stockton crashed to earth as Newcastle raced to a nine wicket victory at Grangefield to become the only top-flight winners on a day when the weather dominated.

When the Tynesiders won the toss it didn’t take them long to determine that bowling was the best option, and their decision paid off as Stockton were pegged bag to a total of 151-7 in the 38 overs available to them.

Rammy Singh scored his first half century for his new club, making 56 from 75 balls, but once he became the first of Jacque du Toit’s four victims it was an uphill struggle for the Teessiders, with the overs allotted to their innings drastically reduced when the lunch break was followed by rain that halted the match for several hours.

Newcastle didn’t need any second invitations to make a real go of a restricted run chase, with Durham’s Graham Clark blasting ten fours and five sixes and reaching his century with a match winning boundary as victory was achieved in 24.1 overs.

There was supreme irony at Blaydon where their match against South Shields was stripped of more than three hours of playing time because of the rain, only for a final abandonment to occur ten overs before the scheduled end because the sun was blinding the players and officials.

Shields made 196-7 in 39 overs, the highlight a fourth wicket stand of 97 between Gordon Muchall (47 at a run-a-ball) and Rob Gibson, who cracked 62 from 59 balls. Blaydon went out for what they hoped would be 32 overs of batting, but with the score on 50-4 after 22 of those the positioning of the late evening sun made it tough to see, and the umpires called it off.

Hetton Lyons were in with a shout of victory in their home game against Tynemouth who made 170-9 in 35 overs, Lal Kumar picking up three of the wickets to fall after arriving in the country a couple of days earlier.

With 29 overs to get the runs Lyons raced to 105-2, but the loss of five wickets for 21 runs effectively extinguished their hopes and they closed out on 150-8.

Draws were the order of a rain-ruined day, the highlight of the other three matches being a brilliant century by Benwell Hill’s Sameet Brar who smashed 18 fours and two sixes in scoring 123 from 89 balls, which he then followed up with five for 15 as Gateshead Fell finished on 178-8 in reply to the Hill’s declared total of 243.

In the First Division it was a tale of two halves. In the first half of the day the matches at Burnmoor, South Hetton and Tudhoe were washed out, but in the second half there were victories for Boldon, Brandon and Washington.

Brandon went top of the table as Ryan Nicholson, a century maker the week before, bagged five wickets for 19 runs, his initial burst reducing Sacriston to 5-5. Set 120 there were few alarms as the early-season leaders cruised to victory with nine wickets to spare.