THERE was a time when Trinity Cup matches were totally dominated by the half dozen professionals who were allowed to play writes Peter Stafford
But at Darcy Lever, for the second consecutive season, it was an amateur who produced the headlines.
Following in the path of his former Farnworth Social Circle club-mate, Matt Parkinson, Farnworth's Tim Barrow ended his bowling spell just one wicket short of what would have been the best ever bowling analysis in the series' history.
At Little Lever 27 years ago, Les Whittle took 6-18 on the League's behalf, his six wickets arriving consecutively as the Association lurched from 32-2 to 45-8.
On Monday Barrow destroyed the home side's middle order, and, had there been one, his 5-14 would have thoroughly deserved a man-of-the-match award.
He was superbly supported by the other bowlers, who combined to send down 21 maidens in a total of 47 overs. Adil Nisar took 2-10 from his quota of 10, while Amal Dalugoda went for only 11 runs from his 10.
Three years ago at Westhoughton Terry Southworth was adjudged man-of-the-match for doing exactly that.
A total of 82 was never going to be testing and, sure enough, the in-form Adil Nisar stretched his run tally to 456 from his last six innings with an unbeaten 56. If there had been a man-of-the-match award it might have been appropriate to hand it to the Darcy Lever groundsman, who had worked miracles to prepare things to such a high standard given the recent appalling weather conditions.
On Saturday I watched the first of Westhoughton's two wins over a weekend that took them to the threshold of their first title since Mike Watkinson was a lad.
They beat Eagley, whose inept batting display saw them collapse from a bright 57-0 to an all out 127.
True, the ball tended to keep a bit low at one end, but that had not seemed to bother Westhoughton, nor, indeed, Chuck O'Rourke, who opened the innings and was last out for a superb 67.
Adam Coates and Dave Leonard each made telling contributions, the latter against one of his previous clubs, and Antonio Mayers had an excellent game, adding 4-59 to his half-century.
He now has 99 wickets going into tomorrow's match which, together with his 852 runs, may have put him in pole position with regard to the professional's prize.
The other two main contenders are obviously Adil Nisar, whose sixth century of the season on Saturday took his figures up to 1,237 and 66, and Nishit Shetty with 1,258 and 33.
Dave White (822 and 72) has been his usual reliable self, and Narendra Hirwani needs just four more to register his second Bolton League century of wickets.
Gary Garner reached 1,000 runs on Saturday for the third time, while, with the ball, Mark Stewart requires a further five for his 100 wickets.
In my first article of the summer I mentioned Grant Long and Mike Bennison's continuing race towards Brian Cole's best career figure.
At the time Bennison was 19 runs ahead of the Horwich captain, but Long's two half centuries of last weekend took him back into a nine-run lead.
At the top of the second 11 table, Greenmount's lead over Bradshaw has been cut to seven points. If the two clubs end the season on level points, Greenmount would take the title by virtue of a vastly superior merit average.
I notice that Horwich's Jon Partington needs seven more victims from the last two games to take him to joint top of the wicket-keeping list. If I'd known about all this when I was JP's teacher 30 years ago, I'd have strongly advised him to stick to football and table tennis.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article