FARNWORTH'S innings began disastrously at Westhoughton when they found themselves three wickets down with only five runs on the board.

Yet two good partnerships improved their score to a respectable 142 but it still was not good enough to earn them a badly needed first win as the home side rushed to a nine wicket victory with a total of 145-1.

Earlier it was pro Shafique Ahmed and Martin Axford who helped Farnworth recover from that disastrous start,

They put on 61 for the fourth wicket before another partnership of 66 between Matt McGuinness and Mather took them to 142, McGuinness top scoring with 35 and Ahmed 27 while their former wicketkeeper Wayne Luntley celebrated taking five victims, all caught, for Westhoughton.

Farnworth then had reason to be optimistic when they had Westhoughton opener Steve Parker back in the pavilion with only five runs scored but that was quickly dashed as Ian Pilkington and Alan Gaskell decided the game with a 140 partnership.

Pilkington, who has been lacking some batting form of late, was never troubled as he put together a stylish unbeaten 76 with Gaskell just missing out on a half century at 48 not out. Egerton were always struggling to match Bradshaw's total of 193-5 and in the end were probably satisfied with the draw.

Pro Dalugoda and Johnson dominated the Bradshaw batting with half centuries while Egerton's only high spot was O'Rourke's innings of 70 which lifted them to 144 but with eight wickets down. The man mainly responsible for that was the Bradshaw pro Amal Dalugoda, who had the impressive figures of 6-30 off 25 overs.

Eagley also found no respite from their struggle at the bottom. They were beaten by eight wickets at Farnworth Social Circle, for whom Richard Hope and pro Quasir Rashid both scored 44 in a total of 134-2.

Earlier Eagley pro Imran Javed had provided 61, the bulk of the runs in their total of 133.