FARNWORTH and Greenmount both suffered shock defeats on Saturday as Westhoughton jumped to the summit of the Bolton League.

Westhoughton secured a bonus-point away to Walkden to put them joint top of the table with Greenmount.

Sayed Shah impressed with the bat for Walkden as they posted a healthy score of 160-9 at the end of their innings, with Kieran Edwards bowling 6-72.

Danny Naylor (57) and Qaisar Abbas (51no) led the response and completed the comeback to the loss of only two wickets.

And skipper Rob Houghton was delighted with his side’s current form: “It was a fantastic day for us with other results going our way,” he said.

“We produced a great team performance and our batting just keeps getting better and better.

“It is good to be back in the mix but there is still a lot of cricket left to be played this year so we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.

“We would like to keep this winning run up and I’m sure there will be a few more upsets to come in the league.

“There will be plenty of teams knocking on the door and come mid-September we hope to be up there with the likes of Farnworth and Greenmount who look to be the early pace-setters.”

Chris Barrow starred for Farnworth Social Circle as they shocked league leaders Greenmount.

David Tonge (23) and Rameez Alam (24) opened the scoring for the Piggott Park side who raced out of the blocks after rain reduced the game to 30 overs per side.

However, it was middle-order batsman Barrow who stole the show as he smashed two fours and 12 sixes to score a phenomenal 87 of only 37 balls.

Barrow’s score was even more impressive by the fact he was facing the highest wicket-taking bowler in the league in the form of Mark Stewart (6-56) – who dismissed most of his team-mates.

Chasing a target of 172, Phil Ingram led the Greenmount reply hitting 47 and Damian Keegan chipped in with 26, but Dave Mather was on form with the ball bowling 5-49 and Barrow also took 3-46 as Greenmount fell 45 runs short.

This result gave Farnworth the chance to leap-frog Greenmount but they failed to do so at home to second-bottom Heaton.

Imran Mirza ran the show for the visitors as he scored 72 with the bat and team-mate Adam Halton added 32no to post 155-7 after rain reduced the game to 33 overs.

A consistent batting line-up enabled Farnworth to rack up the runs with Kamran Sajid (30), Simon Booth (28), Melbourne Austin (28) and Curtis Anderton (27no) all scoring high. However, Mirza (5-60) and professional Haroon Farhat (3-45) ensured the hosts fell two runs short as their overs expired.

Tonge, who are still in search for their first win of the season, came mightily close to finding those much needed six points when they visited Astley Bridge.

Mansoor Ahmed (52) notched a half-century and Dave Bath added 21 as the visitors were bowled out for 143 - Amal Athulathmudali (5-56) and Syd De Silva (4-26) produced the goods with the ball.

De Silva then turned his hand to the bat striking 33 and skipper Simon Entwistle added 30. However, Bath caused a nervy finish as his five wicket-haul dried up the runs but the hosts edged over the line with five balls of the reduced 30 over game remaining .