ONLY five matches managed to beat the weather last weekend in the Bolton League 2nd XI competition, and with leaders Horwich RMI rained off and second-placed Bradshaw on a free date attention turned to the chasing pack.

Westhoughton's hopes of closing the gap on the top two suffered a blow as they slipped to a surprising defeat to Standish. Batting first, Westhoughton had moved to 117-4 off 19 overs thanks mainly to Kai Hodgkiss (41) and Jordan Higham (28) when the weather intervened again.

They declared to leave Standish a revised target of 66 in 10 overs which the visitors managed to reach with one ball and three wickets to spare. Mike Hadfield led the chase with a quickfire 33 as Higham completed a good all-round performance with 3-12.

Walkden dented Farnworth’s hopes of climbing back up the table as they chased down another revised target – this time of 101.

Daniel Jackson had Walkden in some trouble as three early wickets fell, but despite him taking 5-33, Andrew Salami with an unbeaten 27 led a lower-order recovery to see his side home. Earlier, Matthew Hicks had top-scored for Farnworth with 26 as they reached 116-9 in their allotted 32 overs with Harry Morgan taking 4-19.

In a game originally reduced to 38 overs a side, Farnworth Social Circle raced to 199-1 in just 26 overs at Piggott Street thanks to a superb stand between Matthew Knight - who made an unbeaten 102 - and Chris Lane (71) before declaring and setting Darcy Lever 200 to win.

Lane then completed an excellent individual performance by taking 5-24 to help restrict Darcy Lever to just 107-9 in reply, despite 33 from Andrew Clarke and 24 from Rajan Shah.

At Higham Park, the game was originally reduced to 41 overs each and, despite 34 from John Wallwork, Little Hulton were struggling as wickets fell regularly.

However, a late revival from Phil Gaskell (34) and David Walker (66 not out) helped them to reach a total of 206-8. Atherton's target was revised to 154 in 27 overs but they never really threatened to get there despite an unbeaten 33 from Tony Gredecki and 29 from Paul Woodend as they finished on 79-2 in reply.

The only other game to be played was at Springfield Road where, having been dismissed for 124, the home side mounted a terrific late fightback before eventually going down by two wickets.

Neil Thomson with 34 held the Kearsley innings together as Andrew Mattison took 4-25 and Tom Gregory 4-31 proved a handful.

Harry Stockton's 33 had then set Lostock up for what looked like a comfortable win as they reached 103-3 only to lose five more wickets before they got over the line. Harvey Wild with 5-42 was the pick of the Kearsley bowling.