Kearsley 2nds Away

On a cold opening day to the defence of their league title Westhoughton lost the toss and Kearsley elected to bat on an under prepared track. Matt Fanning opened the bowling and straight away got into a good rhythm bowling the left handed opener in the 3rd over with a second wicket following in his opening spell. Dan Higham bowled a tight 7 overs without success beating the bat occasionally and retiring one batter hurt as the ball popped off a length into the batsmans visor leaving an impression above the right eye.

Wasim Nawab came into the attack for Dan to try and break the partnership formed between Greg Tonge and Gareth Oliver who both reached the 20’s before holing out to Wasim’s bowling, a smartly taken caught and bowled chance being the highlight of the fielding effort. Runi replaced Matt and “The Prince” picked up the usual couple of wickets with his inswinging slow medium pace.

Matt Fanning and Dan Higham returned for second spells and took 2 wickets a piece to close the innings at 126.

In response Westhoughton didn’t get off to the best of starts with Glenn Bullock, making his debut, bowled for 1 followed by Martin Hodgkiss harshly adjudged lbw for 13. Captain Arun Pindoria and opener Matt Trow started to build a partnership but Runi never looked comfortable on a difficult batting wicket eventually being caught at point for single figures.

With Westhoughton toiling at 30odd for 3 a partnership was required. Kai Hodgkiss joined Matt at the wicket and both batsman dug in and punished the bad ball with Matt reaching his 50 in the penultimate over with Kai finishing 32 not out. A mature batting performance from both players leaving JP with pad rash on the sidelines.

A good 7 wicket win against tricky opposition to get the 2013 campaign off to a winning start. Next up Heaton away.