Champions Downham Town maintained their bright start to the new Premier Division campaign with a comfortable win at Old Buckenham.

Town took the game by the scruff of the neck after winning the toss and opting to bat first, with Jack Gould (80) and Ian Harrison (60) making the main contributions to a total of 283-8.

The Bucks never threatened to get close to that and finished on 200-8, Matt Bint top scoring with 53.

Although Patrick Yates’ side have won both their games since the opening day wash-out they still find themselves four points behind early pacesetters Brooke and Stow, who have also made flying starts.

Brooke came away from the Norton Warnes Ground with an excellent 56 run win over Cromer, who stumbled to a second successive defeat.

The 2016 champions recovered from 112-6 to set a testing target of 239, thanks largely to good knocks down the order from Dan Vihm (43) and captain John Habershon (42). In reply Richard Charlwood (83) and Oli Kimber (47) put on 96 for the fifth but once they were separated the visitors took control.

Newly promoted Stow cruised home at Acle, winning by eight wickets after bowling their hosts out for just 149.

The two other top flight games were abandoned due to the rain, with the hard luck story of the day at Garboldisham. Having made 225, with Kieran Pask contributing 51, Garboldisham had neighbours Diss struggling at 87-8 when the weather closed in.

There was an earlier finish at Fakenham, who never got a chance to bat after seeing North Runcton reach 220-2 in the 39.2 overs that were possible at Highfield Lawn.

There was a high-scoring game in Division One as Topcroft were beaten by Swardeston A after making 279-6 in their 50 overs (Harry Windridge 76). Matthew Taylor was the star man for the visitors, making exactly 100.

Newly promoted Beccles are the early pacesetters, although that has much to do with the fact that they started their season a week early and have played two more games than some of their rivals.

They came away with the points against Sprowston despite a superb bowling effort from Thomas Wright, who produced figures of 4-6 to help dismiss them for just 133. Sprowston ended up 19 runs short as Ian Ruddock took 3-24.