ATHERTON are determined to take the title race right to the wire.

After making up a little ground on leaders and champions Walshaw 24 hours earlier, they came out with the lion's share of the points when the two came head to head.

After a thrilling finish in which Walshaw finished just one run short of the 180 target, Atherton went away with 14 points to Walshaw's seven, reducing the gap between them to 11 with four games to play.

Walshaw bowler Barry Hamilton did his best to thwart Atherton when he took six wickets for 58 runs as pro Greg Dimery hit 66, Philip West 29, David Charlson 27 and Philip Wakefield 25.

Victory for Walshaw would have gone a long way to wrapping up the title and to do it they needed 16 off the last two overs and 10 off the last one. Robin Faulkner top scored with 52 and Anthony Harris again showed good quality with the bat with 41.

Third placed Adlington are 47 points behind the leaders after destroying Lostock by 10 wickets.

Matthew Taylor took 6-39 as the home side were whittled out for just 93 - although that was not bad considering they were 29-6 at one stage.

Phil Knowles hit 34 and new boy Luqmaan Issa 24 including a stand of 48.

Adlington used 20 overs to pass the total with opening pair Andrew Robinson and Scott Henderson both unbeaten on 42.

Just behind them come Golborne who completed a double winning weekend against bottom club Astley and Tyldesley who had also won 24 hours earlier.

Pro Ian Critchley top scored for Golborne with 59, Graham Marston 51 and Ian Robinson 43 as they opened with 191-8, Nigel Doyle taking 3-69.

A&T's promising teenager Jimmy Cutt again produced the goods with a super 90 in reply but his team-mates failed to follow his lead as they were all out for 169.

They were looking good at 129-4 with 13 overs left. Then Cutt was out and their chances of victory slipped away when Marston scooped a hat-trick to leave A&T on 165-8. They were Marston's only wickets while Critchley took 4-49.

Jack Southworth is another youngster who is doing the business with the bat. In his latest outing he scored 49 in Blackrod's 166-4, pro Dave Morris hitting 64 and Jack's dad Terry 28 not out.

In reply Little Hulton were all out for 129 as Steve Ashworth ripped through them with 6-29, Mark Penny scoring 32 and Mike Edwards 29.

There was no shortage of bad batting at Elton where Darcy Lever must have feared the worst when they were all out for 110, Eric Shaw and Jamie Taylor top scoring with just 12 apiece and Chris Hall taking 4-33 and Andrew Chappel 3-18 from five overs.

They need not have worried as Elton collapsed for just 61 - 24 hours after being dismissed for 47 at A & T. Andrew Stocks took 6-21 and Yasir Bashir 3-34 with Peter Kay hitting the match's top score of 15.

Pro Arindam Sarkar was unbeaten on 67 as Spring View passed Edgworth's total of 104 all out for the loss of just two wickets.

Clifton got out of jail in a dramatic tied finish with Daisy Hill.

Daisy looked certain to win when they were on 92-5 chasing Clifton's 104 all out. And when they reached 102-6 and then 104-7 victory seemed a formality.

But they found another run impossible to come by as Clifton scooped the last three wickets to grab an unlikely share of the spoils.

Two of the last four wickets fell to Tony Potter - who finished with 5-23 - with the other two, including the final wicket, being run outs.

Earlier, Daisy's destroyers were Steve Hodgkinson and pro Chris Jones who took five wickets apiece. Clifton collapsed after a reasonable start, losing their last six wickets for a paltry nine runs.

Howard Brooks was the game's top scorer with 37 of Daisy's total.