STAND made the trip to the team directly above them in the league, Royton, and on a glorious afternoon the home side won the toss and elected to bat.

They made a decent start to their innings, hitting 20 runs off the first five overs and Stand had to wait until the sixth to claim the first success of the day, as Chris Holt captured the prize wicket of Iqbal Imam (5) caught by Ali Khan at mid off.

Lee Gibbons continued to take the attack to the Stand bowling but fell to Ritchie in the very next over for 27, with the board on 39-2.

Three balls later Holt claimed his second wicket of the afternoon as Hulme was caught by Seedle at slip without scoring.

Ward was joined at the crease by Hughes (20) and the pair added 36 runs before Carl Sutcliffe entered the attack and claimed his first wicket of the day, bowling Ward for 13.

At this stage Royton were 75-4 with an abundance of overs remaining.

However, Sutcliffe continued his superb spell claiming a further four wickets as Royton lost men at frequent intervals.

The only other substantial partnership was between Aussie overseas amateur Percy and Glen Dickinson, the pair producing 30 runs.

By the time Dickinson (10) became Sutcliffe's fifth victim, Royton were toiling on 136-8 with 17 overs remaining, but danger man and mainstay of the Royton innings Percy (aka Prince Harry) was still at the crease.

John Seedle then picked up two wickets to dismiss the home side, firstly by trapping Lees leg before and then having Percy fantastically caught in the deep at cow corner by Moorhead for 42.

Royton had been dismissed for 149 with Carl Sutcliffe starring with the ball as he returned season best figures of 5-52.

Stand begun their run chasing requiring 150 for victory at exactly three runs an over.

Although a number of wickets fell early, Stand were always up with the required run rate.

Martin Bell had taken the first three wickets leaving Stand on 29-3, with Chris Moorhead still in the middle. Moorhead and Taylor added 19 for the fourth wicket, before Taylor was controversially given out, stumped for 8 off the bowling of Imam.

In the very next over without a further run being added, Moorhead was removed for a gutsy 18, leaving Stand struggling on 48-5.

At this point it seemed as though any chance of winning the match had slipped from Stand's grasp. But what followed was one on the best and certainly most important partnership of the season, as young and old (Chris Holt and Dave Wright) combined to put Stand firmly back in the driving seat.

In the space of the next 25 overs the pair dug in and battled, and despite a profusion of noise from the home supporters and a number of loud appeals from the home side, Holt and Wright produced an 89-run partnership worthy of winning any match.

Holt hit 42 from 77 balls including 5 fours and 1 six and Wright provided 39 from 89 balls including 6 boundaries. With the score on 137-6 with 9 overs left and victory almost assured, Hughes entered the Royton attack and turned the game on its head, forcing Holt to play on.

In his next over Hughes claimed a further 3 wickets, the first being Dave Wright who was adjudged leg before (39). By the end of this over Stand had slumped to 142-9 and the chances of victory looked very slip indeed.

This brought Jack Ritchie to the crease to join Gary Bond.

The pair didn't panic and in the following four overs added 3 runs to leave Stand within 4 runs of winning.

It was left until the third ball of the 47th over before Gary Bond played a superb pre-empted shot hitting the ball back over Imam's head for 4, to leave Stand victorious.

Bond held his bat in jubilation and saluted all parts of the ground as the visitors won with one wicket to spare.

Bond finished unbeaten on 8 and Ritchie unbeaten on 1. Hughes was the pick of the Royton bowling as he claimed 4-9 from his 5 overs.