Cricket: Middleton pick up another win

Middleton travelled to Alexandra Gardens to play East Lancs on Sunday 4 August hoping to pick up a win to keep the pressure on Colne at the top of league with just seven games to go.

East Lancs skipper Niall Boyle won the toss and elected to bat and opened the batting alongside Paul Turner.

Middleton professional Chris Williams struck early when he had Turner (1) caught behind by Leighton Le Carpentier with the score on five.

Boyle and Sri Lankan professional Angelo Jaysinghe took the score to 41 before Williams struck again when he had Boyle lbw for 17 and 10 runs later he took the wicket of Jaysinghe who was caught by Danny Royle for 27.

With rain forecasted for later in the day Middleton skipper Dale Highton replaced Richard Dempster who had once again bowled well but had no luck.

Highton struck with his very first ball when he had Joe Bolton caught by Martin Roberts for one with the score on 58 and three runs later he bowled Harry Caton for six.

Middleton now had the bit between their teeth and needed to bowl East Lancs out for a low score and that is what they did with Highton picking up another three wickets to claim a five-wicket haul.

Mark Bolton was bowled for seven, Adam Bolton (2) was run out by Dempster, Adeel Mohammed was lbw to Highton for two, John Turner was well caught by Amaar Malik for 12 and James Tierney wrapped up the innings when he ran out Ali Rehman (0) with Rob Marsh six no as East Lancs were all out for 92.

Williams finished with 15-2-32-3 to keep his recent form up and Highton finished with superb figures of 10.5-3-16-5.

During the tea interval the rain came and for a while it looked like it was in for the day but after a two-hour delay Middleton had a reduced target of 78 off 36 overs to aim at.

Williams and Le Carpentier opened the batting and had taken the score to 20 when Mohammed lbw for two and without addition to the score Williams was bowled by Joe Bolton for 13.

James Tierney and Grant Jones took the score to 46 before Jones was caught at slip by John Turner off Jaysinghe for 17. Dempster helped Tierney to take Middleton up to 65 before he was caught by Adam Bolton off Joe Bolton for five.

James Tierney made sure there were no more wobbles has he hit 14 off a Jaysinghe over with a massive six out of the ground to take Middleton home and the 12 points were in the bag.

A decent performance all round performance and Middleton will play Rawtenstall next Saturday 10 August hoping to keep the promotion band wagon rolling.