Finishing the Season in Style

Westhoughton travelled to Walkden knowing they could finish anywhere from 2nd to 7th in the league depending on other results in the Bolton League.
Having won the toss, the away side made good progress as Walkden were 61-3 and soon after fell to 119-8 as a mix of Dan Reeve (1-28), Qaiser Abbas (3-61), Jason Dunning (1-24) and Atiq Uz-Zaman (3-12) picked up wickets at regular intervals. There were also two run outs including another for Ian Pilkington who's direct hit was reminisant of his effort at Heaton earlier in the season. No-one could have seen what would happen next though as Walkden's out batter threw his bat towards mid-wicket and, having gone to retrieve it, would soon be on his way out of the ground as he left his team-mates one man down for the rest of the game as he was so angry at being run out. Walkden finished 136 all out, leaving Westhoughton with a very good chance of securing a 7 point victory that would guarentee a top 4 place.
Westhoughton's opening parternship of Rob Houghton (45) and Atiq Uz-Zaman (71*) made relatively easy work on a tough batting wicket to take the visitors to 134 before Rob was run out after some miscommunication between himself and Atiq. Rob had earlier had a stroke of luck as he went to pull a short ball onto to sky the ball in the air. With the keeper running backwards to try and take the catch, he soon began to lose his balance and soon ended up head-over-heels to the delight of the Westhoughton balcony and three runs were scored. Pilky joined Atiq after Rob had been run out to see Westhoughton over the line in securing a 7 point victory to not only guarentee a LKO place for next season, but also second place in the league.
Congratulations to the lads on their efforts this season, to finish second after being bottom last year is a fantastic achievement and the future looks bright for the side!