Buoyant Bacup in Colne cruise
BACUP celebrated a 12-point return as they cruised to victory against Colne at Lanehead.
The home side took first knock after winning the toss and put together a competitive total of 222-9 off their 50 overs.
Charlie Gansler was desperately close to a well-deserved century, falling on 94 to a Geeth Kumara delivery.
Matt Collinge (51) and Jake Sunderland (25) also played their part as Bacup reached 222-9 off their allocated overs, Kumara finishing with 5-55 off his 15 overs.
Colne were dismissed for 152 in the 41st over with Bacup sharing out the wickets in a strong team display. The win lifted them into sixth place.
Rawtenstall suffered a heavy loss at home against East Lancashire.
The home side won the toss and fancied a bat on the Worswick Memorial Ground surface – however, at 10-5 they must have been questioning their decision. Four of their top five batsmen were dismissed with scoring and while Ishaq Hussain’s 47 and some gritty resistance from the lower order gave the total some respectability, 114 all out looked comfortable for the visitors.
And so it proved. James Westhead lost his wicket having scored 70 off 79 balls, Niall Boyle (33no) and Kasun Ekanayake (2no) easing East Lancs home.
Rishton fell short in their run chase on home turf against Enfield.
The visitors won the toss and chose to bat, Yasir Ali (66) and Tiarnan Hamill (74) best with the bat for them as they made 281-7 off their 50 overs.
Rishton’s response opened well with Richard Fox (42) and Haseeb Hameed (71) putting on 87 for the first wicket, Fox the first to fall.
Haseeb quickly ran out of partners and once he fell with the score 142-5, the writing was on the wall for Rishton and they were dismissed for 189 in the 49th over.
Leaders Crompton stretched their advantage at the top with a fourwicket win against Accrington at the Property Shop Arena.
The home side had won the toss and elected to bat first, Ben Gorton dominating the innings with a fine 113 which included 18 fours.
But support was hard to come by, Stuart Crabtree making 19 while Jacob Clarke hit 35 and stuck around for 73 deliveries.
Accrington made 206-9 off their 50 overs, Muhammad Zuhaib claiming 5-34 for Crompton.
In their reply, the visitors’ openers Jake Hoosen and Denis Louis put on 66 for the first wicket, Louis falling for a quickfire 47 off 31 balls which included ten fours.
Hoosen’s 26, an unbeaten 55 from Mohammed Jamal and Mohammed Hamza’s 42 not out saw Crompton over the line.
Great Harwood fell well short in their run chase at Nelson. The home side won the toss and batted first, making 270-7 off their 50 overs with Neil Thompson (95) and Lewis Bradley (66) impressing. Matt Oddie was best with the ball for Great Harwood, taking 4-37 off seven overs.
In reply, Thikshila De Silva’s 56 and Chris Oddie’s unbeaten 66 offered Great Harwood hope, but they were always behind the required run rate.
Church picked up the lion’s share of the points in an enthralling match against Littleborough which ended in a tie at Hare Hill.
The game ebbed and flowed all afternoon and in the end a tie was probably a fair result.
At the start of play Littleborough were joint top of Division 2 with Crompton and Church were just seven points behind in third place.
Come Saturday night Church had cut the gap to five on the home side and Crompton had opened up a three-point gap at the top of the table.
Littleborough won the toss and had no hesitation in deciding to bat on what looked like an excellent batting surface.
Levi Wolfenden broke
down after the first over of the match and would not bowl again. He was replaced by Andrew Bentley, who along with visiting professional Sagar Trivedi made the home side work hard for their runs.
Travis Townsend was bowled by his opposite number with the score on 8 with what looked to be a decent delivery. Zac and Clinton Perren then both dug in, playing very well and had taken the score to 79, just before drinks when Zac needlessly chipped Bentley to the waiting Scully at cover.
Ryan Miskella came out to bat and it was obvious he was not fit to play after going over on his ankle in the ‘football warm up’ in what turned out to be a sprained ankle. He fell for one (85/3).
This brought Matthew Hernon, who is in the form of his life, to the crease to join his skipper in the middle. They took the score to 114 when Perren got a ‘shocker’ judged to have leg glanced behind when the ball had clearly hit his thigh pad.
Chris Schofield and Pye came and went to Mohammed Bhada for 4
and nought respectively.
Josh Unsworth batted positively before foolishly getting stumped for 11 and when Lewis Williamson was lbw for a duck to the returning Trivedi the home side were in a spot of real bother and had slumped to 148/8.
Watching all this at the other end was the in form Hernon. At last he found a willing partner in the underrated Lewis Willman as they put on a valuable 59 for the ninth wicket.
In doing so, Hernon passed 50 for the third time in his last four innings and he was finally out of the last ball of the innings for an excellent 76 off just 73 balls with two maximums and six boundaries.
The only downside was that he gifted the visitors two points by going for a maximum which in reality – brave though it may be – was not the correct choice of shot as Philip Gilrane held onto the catch in the deep and two points in the process as the home side finished on 215 all out.
Townsend and Wilman opened the bowling and after a cautious start the visitors openers Craig Fergusson and Josh Scully started to get on top of the attack and had taken the score to 49 when Fergusson edged Willman to Perren in the slips.
Wolfenden joined his opening partner and had taken the score to 106 before both fell without any addition to the score. Wolfenden was dismissed by Williamson care of a good catch by Perren in the slips and Scully fell to Hamza Ali care of a catch by Schofield. 106/3 game on.
Bhada fell for a fourteen-ball duck with the score on 130 and that brought Kelen Florentine to join Trivedi in the middle.
After a slow start, Trivedi started to cut loose and took 14 off one Willman over. Trivedi fell to Hamza with the score on 161 care of an excellent catch by Schofield at long on and with eight overs left 56 were needed with skipper Sam Holt and Florentine at the crease.
Ali dropped Holt first ball off a sharp high caught and bowled chance. Both batsman batted sensibly as Perren rotated his bowlers the best he could. 43 off 6 became 32 off 5 became 25 off 4 became 33 off 3 became 19 off 2 and when the final over came 13 were needed.
With his three main bowlers all bowled out, Perren took it on himself to deliver the last over himself.
His first ball went the distance and all of a sudden seven were needed off five deliveries.
The next four deliveries were excellent and with the fifth ball he ran out Holt who was backing up too far in the search for quick runs.
Three for a win for the visitors, two for a tie and a single or dot ball would clinch victory for the Boro.
Perren bowled the last ball, Florentine drove it hard to Schofield who picked the ball up excellently at long on – the throw came in, Perren was convinced it was going to hit the wickets... it didn’t and he then fumbled the ball as Gilrane scampered home for a tie.
An excellent game of cricket by two evenly matched teams. Church took nine points, Littleborough seven.