Faulkner's men in imperious form at top
8:31pm Sunday 5th July 2009 in Sport By Nick Jackson
IT was very much a case of “as you were” with the league’s pace-setters all notching victories on a day when every match was rain affected.
Walshaw remained top with a nine-wicket home win over bottom side Flixton.
The Manchester side reached 159-9 with professional Rudi Kieser hitting 51. But with Walshaw’s Jon Fielding and captain Rob Faulkner returning bowling figures for 4-53 and 4-39 respectively that total was never going to be enough.
And so it proved as Walshaw were set a revised target of 131 which they knocked off for the loss of only one wicket. Faulkner was in the thick of the action again with an unbeaten 40 and Jamie Pilling hit 60 before he departed for Gav Nicholl to see the Bury men home with 11 not out.
Little Hulton lead the chasing pack, and they hit a reasonable 213 all out at Golborne with pro Hasnain Abbas getting 50, Shay Parkinson 45, and Abir Chippa 36.
Golborne were set a target of 167 off 34 overs, but succumbed 145 all out, 22 runs short.
Tom Kelly and Rob Turnbull both hit 25. Chippa also starred with ball, taking 5-43 off 12 overs.
Darcy Lever’s 18-year-old Australian Jimmy Dearing was the hero for the third-placed Bolton side as they squeezed home by four runs against Elton at Hacken Lane.
Dearing blazed 134 in Darcy’s total of 246-8, although he was not alone as Jack Southworth filled his boots with a fine knock of 70.
Elton pro Peter Lomax never let his head drop, taking 5-33 and Liam Jackson chipped in with 3-38. Elton’s revised target was 192 and with Mike Hall hitting 53 and Adam Stansfield 51, they almost got there, but finished on 188-8.
Meanwhile, Standish in fourth kept up the heat with win at Adlington, who were dismissed for 116. Their only scorers of note were pro Majid Majeed, 23, John Howells, 21, and Gareth Ellison 21 not out. Standish’s David Bowden took an impressive 6-30 and Jabhir Namajee returned figures of 3-12.
Standish were then set a total of 84 in an innings reduced to 30 overs, a target they achieved with little difficulty and the loss of four wickets thanks to Brett Collins’s 44 and Tony Kelly’s 11.
Fifth-place Blackrod made short work of their revised target when their innings at Astley and Tyldesley was reduced to 34 overs. A&T had posted a score of 190-2 with Jim Cutt notching 85 not out and pro Chris Cook-Martin 71.
Blackrod had to score 148 and they made it with all their wickets intact, pro Asela Jayasinghe hitting an impressive 83 and Saif Bhojani not out on 51.
Home side Edgworth, just below Blackrod in the table, also hit their revised target of 159, but they did it with the loss of six wickets after Daisy Hill were all out of 183.
Daisy pro Anwar-Ul-Haq hit 85 runs, but when the second innings was reduced to 39 overs, Pete Walters, 52, and Guy Haynes, 40, played intelligently to see the villagers home.
In the lower-half-of-the-table clash at Spring View, Atherton were 104 all out with the Wigan bowlers Iain Critchley and David Gornall taking 5-16 and 4-28 respectively.
View were set a target of 72 in 35 overs which they achieved for the loss of two wickets.
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