TOP THREE LOSE

With the top three teams losing, Woodhouses moved up to second place and cut Denton’s lead down to four points.

Thornham remained in 13th place despite a great win at home to Denton. Imran Mirza’s 78 included a 38 ball fifty and Chandi Wathukarage took 4-27 as Denton were dismissed for 164. James Scott (75) and James Burke (49) were then both unbeaten as they put on 122 for the fourth wicket to steer Thornham home.

On his return to previous club Flowery Field, Andrew Gleave scored 67 for Dukinfield but Damien Eyre’s 6-57 bowled Dukinfield out for 159. Mark Dyson (91) and Andrew Lyon (56*) with his maiden fifty put on 149 for the first wicket before Flowery passed their target with two wickets down, both taken by Peter Taylor.

West visited The Heys and completed the double over Prestwich after bowling them out for 185. Jason Stringer took 5-51 and Robin Morris 3-40. Nigel Williams (55), Stringer (35*) and Gareth Senior (37) saw West to a five wicket win.

Woodhouses took four points off Stand when they scored 297-8d with 50 from Chris Atherton, 46 from Daniel Britton and an unbeaten 47 from Darryl Sloan which included five sixes (Carl Sutcliffe 3-92). Stand secured a point as they replied with 231-8, Trent Scott (71) and Paul Wilkinson (41) top scoring as John Seeary took 3-56.

Before this match D.S.L. were 16 points adrift of the top of the table but a win at Cheetham Hill reduced this to 11. Steve Dublin was unbeaten on 90; Matthew Wake scored 69 and Barry Williams 59 (his 70th fifty) as D.S.L. reached 288-3d. Jason Bennett, Dave Morrell and Rashid Nadeem then each took three wickets as Cheetham Hill were bowled out for 127.

Irlam changed places with Woodbank after scoring 260-6d (Pervez Shah 92*) and bowling the hosts out for 119 (Rick Blackman 5-34, Chris Hilton 3-31).

Roe Green closed the gap on Glossop as they scored 185-6 to win by four wickets. Bhatiya Perera passed 500 runs as he scored 83 but Matthew Wright with 7-48 bowled Glossop out for 184. Perera then took 3-76 but Paul Green’s unbeaten 65 gave victory to Roe Green.