LEIGH opened their 150th anniversary season with a 64-run victory over a Huyton side who had done the double against them in league games last year.

But the first group match in the Premier Division Knockout Trophy competition had started badly for the Beech Walk side as they struggled to 62-6 before a good recovery saw them reach 135.

They were assisted early on by a remarkable sequence of wides that totalled 28 in all during their innings. The main culprit was opening bowler Birch who had a day to forget as he sent down no fewer than 17 wides including eight in his fifth and final over.

The home side's batsmen looked rusty as they got out to a succession of poor shots with veteran medium pace bowler Tim Watkins cashing in to the tune of 3-8 off his 6 overs.

It was only when Leigh's debutant overseas player Liam Zammit (17) and his Australian compatriot Ronnie Davis (38no) came together that the bowlers came under pressure and Leigh eventually managed to use up their full allocation of 45 overs as they were all out off the last ball.

Huyton lost Nawab, brilliantly caught by slip specialist Zammit, off the bowling of Davis with only two runs scored. Murphy and Menzie then took the score to 25 before the left arm medium pace of Paul Vallance (4-23) and the impressive leg spin of Zammit (2-14) gave Leigh complete control. A brilliant run out by Tim Rees and another great slip catch by Zammit off Davis helped to reduce the opposition to 60-9.

The last pair of batsmen took the total to 71 before Chris Melia was introduced into the attack and bowled Watkins with his first delivery.

Leigh travel to Northern on Saturday for the second group match and take on the same opposition on Sunday in the first round of the National Knockout competition at Beech Walk.