THE Bolton League batsmen threw away the chance of claiming the Lancashire inter-league final at Edenfield.

They were beaten by two wickets by the Ribblesdale league in a match they were widely expected to win.

The reason they did not was due to the fact that the upper batting order failed and despite a brave rally by last pair Sajid Mahmood and Mark Stewart their total of 173 all out was never enough to stretch the Ribblesdale side.

Skipper Simon Anderton did his best early on to hold things together with an innings of 34 but once he had gone wickets fell cheaply to careless shots and suddenly the League had slumped to 120-9.

That brought Mahmood and Stewart together and they ground out a partnership of over 50 to at least give the bowlers a target to aim for.

Mahmood was last out after hitting 32 valuable runs while Stewart was unbeaten on 19.

The Ribblesdale League quickly made it clear they were not going to hang around and opener Walton pushed the score along until he was caught and bowled by Stewart after scoring 31.

After that Ian Scothern 23 and Phil Beech, who went on to hit the day's top score of 51, guided Ribblesdale safely towards their win and although there was some belated success for the Bolton bowlers, Riblesdale emerged comfortable winners.