ANOTHER embarrassing batting collapse by EDS Leigh meant that the hard work put in by their bowlers was wasted.

Although Leigh made a good recovery, they narrowly failed to avoid their third defeat of the season against league leaders Bootle, this time by a margin of 27 runs.

Skipper Dave Dove must have been unhappy to lose the toss giving the home side the opportunity to bat first on such a fine afternoon but his bowlers did well to contain their strong batting line-up and keep the scoring rate below three per over until a late burst of scoring.

Ex-Lancashire player Paddy McKeown and Ian Cockbain junior opened the batting with McKeown scoring the majority of the runs as his partner struggled to get going.

After some good pace bowling by Davis and Donkers, spinners Pedrola and Melia took over and their patience finally paid off in the 28th over with the score on 77 when Pedrola had McKeown (63) stumped by stand-in keeper Andy Batterley as he tried to step up the scoring rate.

Cockbain junior was next to go after struggling against the accurate Leigh bowling for 110 balls to score 29 but Graham Lloyd was employing the reverse sweep to great advantage and helped to take the score to 150 before skying a catch to be third man out for a run a ball 44. Donkers made an enthusiastic return to clean bowl Sainsbury first ball and have Hignett (23) caught behind. The declaration came soon after at 184- 5 off 50 overs.

Excellent spell

For Leigh, Pedrola's excellent 13 over spell of off-spin earned him 3-49 and Donkers showed up well with 2-39. This left their side with the reasonable task of scoring at just over three an over to claim their fourth league win at Bootle out of the last five visits.

Their target soon appeared to be very distant indeed, however, after a totally disastrous start to their innings.

Batterley was bowled first ball by Cheshire quick bowler Charlie Lamb and Tim Rees followed three balls later caught and bowled. Dave Dove was caught at short leg in Lamb's third over to leave his side on 9-3.

Gareth Cross seemed totally unperturbed by the crisis and scored a rapid 22 off 24 balls before becoming Lamb's fourth victim also caught at short leg. With Steve Mullaney lbw to Sainsbury for one, the Beech Walk side were facing humiliation with half the side out for only 27.

At this point Pedrola made his mind up that the best form of defence was attack and launched into an awesome attack on the bowling. He proceeded to blast the ball to all parts of the ground as he raced to a brilliant 59 off 54 balls including 42 runs in boundaries. With Davis departing cheaply he found a willing partner in Donkers who helped him to add 44 for the seventh wicket taking the score to 103.

After Pedrola's departure, bowled by Lamb, Donkers took control using immaculate defensive technique mixed with some forceful attacking shots. Although he was given brave assistance by the tailenders, in particular Chris Melia (7 off 35 balls), he was left high and dry just one run short of a richly deserved half century. He batted over two hours in all and had faced 123 balls when the last wicket fell at 157 with 3.3 overs left. For Bootle, Lamb finished with 6 for 61 off 18.3 overs.

Second team

The following day, Leigh played their delayed National Knockout tie against Roe Green who had to turn out their second team due to other cup commitments.

The visitors were dismissed for 55 in 33.5 overs (Pedrola 3 for 15, Rees 3 for 7) and Leigh knocked off the required runs in just 7.2 overs for the loss of one wicket, Mullaney and Rees each finishing undefeated on 24.