Cricket: Middleton march on at the expense of Milnrow

Saturday brought Milnrow to Middleton and  professional Chris Williams timed his innings to perfection with a well crafted 51, including six fours, to help Middleton to victory.

Good contributions came from Grant Jones with 25, captain Walker 12, James Tierney 19 and Zain Tahir 18.

Middleton were also indebted to Rhys Tierney who had a super knock of 28 including a couple of sixes and a superbly executed Dilscoop to the delight of the watching supporters. A Dilscoop is a reverse scoop of the ball over the wicket-keepers head for a four.

He was unfortunate that Middleton had reached the end of the overs with him looking extremely comfortable. At the end of the reduced 40 overs, due to rain, Middleton were 177 for seven wickets.

Milnrow were soon in trouble with Jones taking an excellent catch low down to dismiss Crabtree off the bowling of Williams.

Fellow opener Steve Dryden was bowled by Mike Pritchard for eight leaving Milnrow in trouble at 29 for two.

This brought Milnrow Pro Mohammed Saeed Anwar to the wicket to try to stabilise the innings and this he did to some extent. However, he too was to become another victim of Mike Pritchard who gave one of the finest bowling performances seen at Towncroft for some time.

Bowling with fire and real pace this was an outstanding performance from Pritchard who had the Milnrow batters in all sorts of problems.

With Chris Williams tying the batsmen down at the other end with his swing and movement off the pitch, Pritchard took them on from the Hollin Lane end.

He bowled three, had two lbw and had two caught to leave him with the fine figures of 11 overs, two maidens, 34 runs and seven wickets.

Milnrow were overwhelmed and eventually all out for 79 with Tom Rutter picking up the final wicket to fall.