Haslingden up to fourth place
HASLINGDEN moved up to fourth place in the top flight after a 41-run victory against Walsden at Bentgate.
Hassy won the toss and opted to take first knock. They opened well with Matthew Griffin (37) and Mini Bhada (44) putting on 68 for the first wicket before Griffin was bowled by Sheik Islam.
Zafar Gohar came in and, with Bhada, took the score to 125 before Bhada fell.
Gohar went on to make an unbeaten 90, with able assistance from Alex Coleman, who hit a quickfire 39 from 27 deliveries as Haslingden closed on 260-3.
Josh Gale (47) and Nick Barker (23) put on 66 for the first wicket in Walsden’s reply before the latter fell and there were strong efforts from Joe Gale (73) and Jomel Warrican (29) – but the visitors were all out for 219 in the 45th over.
Ramsbottom’s game at Lowerhouse ended in a tie with both sides taking nine points.
Lowerhouse had won the toss and batted first, making just 109 all out with Dean Barlow top scorer with 27.
Senuran Muthusamy was best with the ball for Rammy, claiming 5-18.
Rammy found the bowling of Stephen Parry (5-40) and Patrick Martin (5-41) tough to get to grips with as they were dismissed for 109 in the 35th over.
Rochdale’s unbeaten run came to a juddering halt at Redbrook last Saturday when they were decisively beaten by an impressive Darwen team, which, on this evidence can be labelled as prospective champions.
The margin of victory – 86 runs – if anything understates Darwen’s superiority, which was clear from the very first over of the game.
Dale’s recent record against Darwen is good. Only a fortnight ago they thrashed the league leaders by nine wickets on their own ground, and over the last few seasons Darwen’s top order have had problems against Rochdale’s opening attack, in particular Steve Oddy.
But here they came with a plan. Kamran Anwar was promoted to opener with sole aim of hitting the veteran seamer and his co opening bowler Casey Roche, out of the attack.
And the ruse worked, to the extent that. although Dale skipper Jamie Roche persevered with the two bowlers, Anwar blasted 47 from only 28 balls and Darwen motored along at more than 7 runs per over in the early stages.
Eventually, Anwar holed out to Jacob Pauline at deep square leg, but the tone for the rest of the innings was set. Anwar’s opening partner, Scott Friend, completed a pleasing half century, notable for his sweeping of Dale professional Sean Whitehead, whose frustration was only relieved when Friend danced down the track to him and was bowled.
But neither dismissal inhibited Darwen with John Cordingley also completing a fluent half century, and visiting professional Siddesh Lad producing an excellent run a ball cameo, the highlight of which was six off Whitehead which landed on the players’ balcony.
The rest of the visitors’ batsmen to take guard were equally assertive Darwen were able to post the large total of 262 with Rochdale having been unable to extract any satisfaction from their stint in the field save, perhaps from another promising spell from Jacob Pauline who, although expensive, like his colleagues, took three wickets, including that of Lad whose fierce straight drive Pauline clung onto diving to his right.
Dale’s reply only briefly hinted at a challenge to the total. A quick spurt to 20 off four overs was followed by the loss of James Maurice-Scott, caught at short extra cover, and then Andy Dawson who nicked off driving a wide one.
Dave Bowden trapped Ali Muzaffar in front for 7 and when Zimmy Khan, 40 and Jack Duffy departed within the space of 2 runs Dale were 74 for 5 and the game was up.
The state of play did, however, offer Whitehead the opportunity to extract some batting practice and he duly completed a half
century, which, in context of this game was irrelevant, but is likely to be of value in games to come.
After the drama and excitement of the previous week, Norden were grateful for a routine victory when they travelled to Towncroft to face Middleton on Saturday.
What did not change from the week before, though, was the outstanding batting form of opener Josh Tolley who scored a second consecutive century to form the backbone of Norden’s impressive 1st innings total of 340 for 3.
No Norden batter was dismissed before reaching a half-century, with Hashum Malik and Ashar Zaidi both reaching that milestone in support of
Tolley who went on to score 142 to add to his 177 from last week.
He was out from the final ball of the penultimate over having struck nine fours and six sixes in his knock and taken Norden to a total that would never realistically be chased by a Middleton side missing their two leading amateur players in Rehan Udwadia and James Tierney.
Greg Butterworth also added a late flourish to the innings with a quickfire 41* from 28 balls and Middleton left the field at tea looking a beaten side.
Home professional, James Price scored 80 in Middleton’s reply but the only other player to make double figures was Rhys
Tierney who added 11 and the winning margin was a colossal 225 runs when Nick Brierley took the final wicket to secure the maximum 12 points.
Prior to that it had been Usama Malik and Butterworth who had done the damage with four wickets each and skipper Malik was never troubled by the fact that he was without three regular seam bowlers.
The result keeps Norden in third place in the table and Middleton bottom with 10 matches left to play.
Elsewhere, Greenmount won by six wickets at home against Burnley and Clitheroe enjoyed a 77-run away win at Todmorden.