National Knock Out Disappointment

With Westhoughton missing two of their most senior players in Ian Pilkington and Ste Parker, they travelled to Prestwich with the same under-dog tag that they took to Northern last year, but unfortunately for the lads they couldn't replicate the same result.
Having lost the toss, Westhoughton made a steady start reaching 36 before captain Rob Houghton was bowled. Another decent partnership of 38 followed between Atiq Uz-Zaman (34) and Glenn Bullock (26) before a slight collapse saw Westhoughton 89-4. What followed was a solid partnership of 67 between Kieran Paisley (33) and Sean Dunning (28) who looked in little-to-no trouble at the crease before they were both dismissed LBW which, on another day, would have seen them at the crease and who knows what scores they could have posted. As it was, Westhoughton fell from 156-4 after 30 overs to 183 all out after 43 overs.
In reply, the hosts were lucky to see their opening two batters both receive lives as one caught behind was not given and another was hit high in the sky and was lost momentarily in the sun, enough time to allow the batter to survive. It was only with the score on 78 that Nathan Blair (1-44) made the breakthrough. There were two late wickets for Dan Naylor (2-34) but in the end Prestwich prevailed as they finished 184-3 with approximately 10 overs to spare.
The lads face Heaton on Sunday (1sts home, 2nds away) in their first league games of the 2014 season.