Kearsley 1sts Home

The league campaign for Westhoughton 1st XI began with a game against Kearsley and the returning Parker brothers. Having won the toss, captain Rob Houghton top scored with a well worked 55, sharing partnerships of 42 and 59 with Atiq Uz-Zaman (23) and Ian Pilkington (25) respectively. However, Westhoughton stuttered from 102-1 to 125-6. This was before Rob Brown (32) and Kieran Paisley (30*) shared a partnership of 57 to help lift the hosts to 192-7 from their 50 overs.
Kearsley's response got off to a quick start thanks to Ste Parker who scored 30 before being caught by Kieran Edwards off the bowling of Paul Hart. Harty picked up another early wicket to leave Kearsley 51-2 from 17 overs. Kearsley were soon 80-4 as Qaiser Abbas picked up his first two wickets for Westhoughton, including a smart catch at short leg by Edwards. What followed was a partnership of 106 between Kearsley's deputy Pro Brad Moses (61* and 2-53 from 18 overs) and the other Parker, Rick (49). Abbas would break this partnership, and subsequently took a hat trick that left Kearsley 186-7 with plenty of nerves in the away dressing room. Unfortunately for the hosts, Kearsley didn't lose another wicket and reached their victory target after 48 overs. Had the extras column (32, including 19 wides), been lower, the hosts would have stood a great chance of winning the game.
Westhoughton look to rebound from this defeat tomorrow as they face Northern in the National Knock Out. The game is at Northern with a 1pm scheduled start time.