It was winner takes all for the Mid Essex Cricket League Premier Division title - and High Roding made sure they were the triumphant ones.

They went to Great Waltham, the only side that could deny them the crown, and it was the hosts who won the toss and elected to bat first.

That seemed the right call, especially when they scored 40 off the first four overs.

However, Roding's bowling attack of Archie Halls and Josh O’Connor swiftly turned the game around with three top-order wickets, aided by some sharp catching in the field.

George Halls picked up a big wicket, snaring the division's leading run scorer, Elham Oabarkhail, with the first ball of his second spell, a perfect away swinger that was edged to slip.

One partnership towards the end of the order dragged Waltham from 80-6 up to a total of 195-9.

But the Roding batsmen made sure that the total was always going to be on the short side.

Openers Ben Chillingworth and Charlie Knightley showed great patience at the crease and and made use of the fast outfield to find gaps.

Both soon reached 50 in good fashion with Chillingworth the first to go for 76, leaving Roding on 139-1.

Knightley followed shortly after but in came big-hitters George Halls and Travis Doyle and these two saw Roding over the line with almost 14 overs to spare.

A spokesman for the club said: "This was a great result.

"Nine of the 11 players out there have come through the colts system, a fitting testimony to the hard work the coaches have put in over the years.

"We also had the support of Radio 1's Greg James, who played for Roding colts when he was a young lad."

Keelan Mendel scored 72 for Saffron Walden against Histon. Picture: IAIN WALKERKeelan Mendel scored 72 for Saffron Walden against Histon. Picture: IAIN WALKER (Image: Iain Walker)

There was a welcome win for Saffron Walden's second team, even if the firsts lost again.

The two have been struggling at the bottom of the Onyx Division One but facing second-placed Histon, Walden turned on the style to win by 70 runs.

They were made to bat first and spin bowling kept the run-rate down.

They were just 74-3 at the halfway point until a superb 86-run partnership for the fourth wicket between Keelan Mendel (72) and Johnny Rumsby (37) established the base needed for the middle-order to pick up the pace.

Skipper Luke Swanston said: "Although we were still unsure if 193 was quite enough on the board, two wickets in the first over from Cam Taylor (3-31) swung the momentum our way.

"A couple more wickets from Xander Silverwood (3-27) had Histon on the ropes with 28-4 in 10 overs, and contributions from Noah Vintiner (2-26) and Henry Rodda (2-30) in the middle overs left the visitors struggling on 89-8 at drinks."

Rodda then took the final wicket five overs later for a big win.

The thirds also won away to Madingly with the hosts maintaining a positive run-rate throughout but losing wickets.

Pick of the Walden bowlers were Jon Buck (4-32) and Emilia Brown (3-19) although all the bowlers made contributions and took wickets.

In reply, Walden were able to reach the target in 24 overs with a 70-run partnership between Alexi Demetriou-Foule (66 off 73 balls ) and Nick Hoyle (53 off 42) did the most damage.

The 1st XI were in a bottom-of-the-league battle away to Frinton.

After a rain-delayed start, Walden batted consistently with a partnership of 62 between Mihir Chandraker (48) and captain, Josh Down (23) making a positive start.

An hour long stand for Oli Rae (56) added valuable runs in the middle overs to give them 236.

Two early wickets were taken by Ali Hancock (2-46) but from there Frinton's Ashane Wijesurya hit 106 not out to pull them to a tense victory.

The fourths racked up 125 runs before being bowled out by Royston.

In response, an impressive bowling performance from Emma Radley taking three middle-order wickets for one run stemmed the rate temporarily but was not enough to halt it completely and Royston reached the target with five wickets to spare.