ROY Cockram, with a career-best 88, and off-spinner Stuart Ransley, who celebrated league-best figures of 5-31, produced sparkling individual performances as the Hampshire Academy beat Liphook & Ripsley by 81 runs on the Rose Bowl Nursery ground.

The two 16-year-olds took the plaudits as the Young Hawks got their ECB Southern Electric Premier League programme off on a positive note.

Cockram, pictured below, rescued the academy from a worrying 86-6 and guided his side to 225 all out, while Ransley took five of the last six wickets as Liphook plunged from 107-3 to 144 all out.

The academy appeared to be cruising along nicely at 85-2 after positive contributions from Mitchell Stokes (34) and Kevin Latouf (24).

But Nick Gay (4-44) triggered a middle-order collapse - four wickets tumbling for the addition of just one run.

Farnborough College student Cockram had been busy in the pavilion catching up on some AS-level mathematics homework when he found himself thrust into the limelight.

"One minute I was concentrating on a logarithms exercise, the next I was out in the middle puzzling out how to halt a batting collapse," smiled the likeable Hartley Wintney teenager, who was Hampshire's under-16 Player of the Year last season.

"My first object was to play carefully through to drinks and then, with Darren Rouse, try to get the score moving."

Cockram and Rouse, top individual run-getter on the West of England Under-15s' Easter Caribbean tour, certainly did that!

Cockram took up an aggressive stance, punishing Liphook for missing him twice of consecutive balls by cracking two sixes and 14 fours in a blistering 88.

Rouse (28), still a year off sitting his GCSEs, proved an ideal partner - the pair adding 84 as the Young Hawks reached 225 all out.

Liphook appeared to be in the driving seat as Chris Wright (37) and Dominic Ridley (30) eased their reply to 83-1.

But, in typical fashion, the visitors collapsed - initially to 87-3 and later from 107-3 to 144 all out.

Once Jez Bulled (31) became one of off-spinner Ransley's five victims, Liphook folded, the last six wickets tumbling in rapid succession for just 29 runs.