Oldham on the march

Oldham’s Liam Garnett and wicketkeeper Jason Maher appeal unsuccesfully for the wicket of Norden’s Greg Tattersall. Picture by CHRIS SUNDERLAND.

IRREPRESSIBLE Oldham made it six wins in a row and instilled further momentum into their Lake Garage CLL title challenge with a six-wicket demolition of high-flying Norden at the Pollards on Saturday.

Fourth in the table before the game, Oldham are a single point behind Norden after this latest maximum points victory.

And they achieved their success in style, swotting a strong Norden outfit aside with a clinical bowling display and quickfire batting effort whose highlight was a 39-ball 53 from in-form professional Chinthaka Jayasinghe.

Norden took first guard and were skittled for a meagre 100 in the face of some accurate and penetrative bowling.

Stuart Moore took five wickets for the second successive match, his nap hand costing only 31 runs, while skipper Mel Whittle’s 22 miserly overs yielded just 27 runs and produced two wickets.

Liam Garnett was the other bowler to be used, taking two for 33 from his 11 overs.

Top scorer for Norden was Oliver Makin with 17, but danger men Hashim Malik (run out for 7), Nick Brierley (bowled by Moore for 15) and profesional Jean Symes (leg before to Garnett for two) all failed to add to their recent productive performances with the bat.

After the early loss of Paul Thompson, caught behind by Brierley off Norden overseas amateur Zane Arthur for two, Oldham made rapid inroads into their victory target thanks to the brilliant Jayasinghe.

The bare statistics say he hit three sixes and five fours in his rapid half-century, but these were not slogs but crisp, beautifully-timed cricket shots which had the Oldham followers cheering in appreciation.

By the time he was caught at long-off by Arthur off the bowling of Symes, the game was as good as over, Chris McDonnell (seven not out) and Garnett (17 not out) steering Oldham over the winning line.

Second-placed Crompton were thankful that rain washed out their home match against Monton and Weaste after being put into bat on a wet track and being reduced to 15 for three.

Ghaurav Sharma and Andy Taylor took two and one wicket respectively as Darren Graham, Aqib Zulfiqar and Steven Wright were dismissed cheaply.

But the weather had the final say and both teams received two points.

WERNETH were shot out for a paltry 30 at Milnrow as they crashed to a 93-run defeat.
In a rain-affected match reduced to 35 overs per side, Milnrow were 123 for seven - Werneth professional Loku taking five for 42 - when they declared with nine overs remaining, professional Karl Brown hitting 45.

The home side certainly knew what they were doing by declaring as Milnrow crashed to an embarassingly-low total, Stephen John being the main destroyer with seven for 19.

ROYTON went down by 54 runs at Rochdale, who batted first and made 193. Andrew Dawson hit 48, while leg spinner Ghaurav Dhar took four for 32.

Royton were dismissed for only 139, Rochdale’s overseas amateur Dane Currency collecting six for 44.

Elsewhere, league leaders Heywood collected five points against Clifton, whose slow over rate invoked a maximum-points victory for the home side despite their failure to bowl out the opposition.

Saturday results: Norden 100 (Moore 5-31), Oldham 101-4 (Jayasinghe 53); Crompton 15-3, Monton and Weaste dnb; Heywood 227-8 (Peiris 91, Blight 48), Clifton 180-8 (Mukhtar 35, Lord 34, Kaye 7-75); Littleborough 191-8 (Hussain 73, Keiser 58, White 4-32), Ashton 106 (McDonald 39, Daniel 35, Deakin 5-15); Middleton 141-7 (Raza 5-40), Radcliffe 161 (Tariq 52, Coetsee 6-57, Highton 4-51) match drawn; Milnrow 123-7 dec (Brown 45, Loku 5-42), Werneth 30 (John 7-19); Rochdale 193 (Dawson 48, Dhar 4-32), Royton 139 (Currency 6-44); Unsworth 219-6 (Madsen 105 n.o.), Walsden 229-3 (Gunaratne 103) match drawn.