Westhoughton vs Kearsley 1st XI Home

Westhoughton 1st XI struggled with the bat after a decent bowling display against Kearsley. Having won the toss, Rob Houghton asked the visitors to bat and they made steady progress reaching 39-0 from 12 overs. However Paul Hart took his first wicket of the day and another wicket soon following for Kieran Edwards to leave Kearsley 60-2 from 12 overs. Kearsley continued on their way to 106-3 before Paul Hart and Stephen Murdoch combined to take three wickets to leave the away side on 106-6. The Kearsley lower order added a few valuable late runs as Harty would go on to finish with 5 wickets, as well as playing his part in a run out. Pro Murdoch claimed 3-32 as he cleaned up the Kearsley tail with two wickets in two balls, aided by a superb running catch from Dan Reeve, to leave them 146 all out.
Westhoughton hoped that they could get off to a solid start in the run chase, but Kearsley's opening pair of Sainsbury and former Westhoughton Pro Antonio Mayers both claimed a wicket in their second overs to leave the home side 5-2. Another couple of collapses occured as Westhoughton were 28-4 followed by 37-6 with the whole top order gone to the combination of Sainsbury and Mayers. Paul Hart continued his form with the bat top scoring with 23 as he tried to rebuild the innings, but unfortunately there was little support aside from Murdoch (19) and Extras (13) as no-one else reached double figures. Westhoughton ended up 80 all out as they continue to struggle with the bat.