WHEN announcing the score after the first innings of the Section 'F' match between LLSC (Steve Eddowes) and Lower Pools last Tuesday. Kenneth Wolstenholme's famous line "They think it's all over" sprung to mind.

With LLSC on 166 and Lower Pools well behind on 77, all concerned could be forgiven for thinking that a victory for LLSC would be a mere formality, but it is unwise for a team to harbour such thoughts and it is dangerous to underestimate the opposition.

The score book indicates that the first eight LLSC batters scored just 38 runs and the comfortable lead was due to Mary Freeman scoring 44, Lesley Love 37 and Janet Dobson 21, plus 26 bad balls in a rather long innings.

Mary and Lesley hit four and three rounders respectively before the pair were denned after fifteen rounds.

Lower Pools made a potentially disastrous start, losing the first and last two of the line-up and two others recorded zeros first time round, but two hit rounders by way of consolation.

As with their opponents, Lower Pools had to rely on a few batters pushing the score along. Louise Greenhalgh was their top scorer with 23 whilst Hulme and Connell each scored 15 runs and Lowe (10) was the only other to record double figures.

Forced to follow on, Lower Pools were determined to raise their game in the second innings and made a steady start with the first eight all scoring. After four rounds, however, they were down to three batters, but they were determined to stick in and give their side a chance of salvaging the match.

Having been out to the first ball in the first innings, Voiels went round 15 times before being caught for 24, but the top scorers were Lowe with 33 and last batter Egan with 39, both hitting two rounders along the way.

With Lower Pools on 202, LLSC needed 42 to win, but they could not afford to take risks against players who had started to believe in themselves. Two batters were caught out at the first attempt and the other nine were restricted to single runs.

In all, seven LLSC batters were caught out as they tried to score more than ones, two were dismissed at first base and one was hit out.

Stella Pickup was the only batter to get into double figures. She scored 13 and, with the exceptions of Wilson (9), Clegg (8) and Goulding (7), the other LLSC batters scored less than five.

The home players were extremely relieved to find they had scraped to victory by just 14 runs at 216-202 in a match which lasted almost two hours.