IT WAS a highly-successful weekend for EDS Leigh with comfortable victories over a poor Wigan side in the Premier League Knockout Trophy and Barrow in the first round of the National Knockout competition.

After being soundly beaten by Wallasey and Bootle in their previous group matches, Wigan must have viewed their visit to Beech Walk with some trepidation.

They were asked to bat first and quickly lost both openers with only six runs on the board with Davis and Jennings each claiming a wicket. Rowe and Casham took the score to 37 before Casham was brilliantly caught one handed in the outfield by young Jennings.

Four more wickets fell quickly to leave Wigan in all sorts of trouble at 43-7.

Only Rowe of the visiting batsmen looked comfortable against the rampant Leigh bowlers until he was ninth man out with the total on 97 having scored a fine 58, his half century having come off 73 balls in 123 minutes. Wigan's innings closed soon afterwards at 109 off 41.3 overs.

All Leigh's bowlers again performed well, in particular Heath Pedrola (3-15 off 9 overs), Ronnie Davis (2-21 off 9) and Greg Jennings (2-9 off 7.3).

Leigh's first two wickets fell for 34 with Bolton (2-33) and Sharrocks (0-19) troubling the batsmen as they both completed their nine overs in one spell. After Batterley was yorked by Williams for a solid 33, Gareth Cross, with a brilliant undefeated 37, and Heath Pedrola (15 not out) saw their side home without further mishap for a fine seven wicket win in only 23.4 overs.

Unfortunately, Leigh's efforts proved in vain as results in the other games including some that were abandoned, meant that they failed to qualify from their group for the semi-finals.

Leigh batted first against Barrow in the National Cup on Sunday, and initially struggled as the first three wickets fell for 55 runs.

This again brought together Pedrola and Cross who proceeded to flay the Barrow bowling to all parts of the ground. They featured in a superb record-breaking partnership of 202 in only 102 minutes and both reached their centuries within the space of two overs.

Captain for the day Pedrola reached his 50 off just 38 balls and was dismissed for 111 off 93 balls including 8 fours and 7 sixes. Cross scored his maiden first team hundred for Leigh, finishing with 117 (10 fours and 6 sixes). This helped his side to complete their allotted 41 overs with a mammoth score of 283 for 7.

In reply, the visitors were never in the hunt as the Leigh bowlers produced the goods once again. They were all out for 158 (Mowat 71) and Leigh's most successful bowler was Ben Cottrell with a carreer best of 5-51 off 9 overs. Ronnie Davis was also in top form with the ball taking 2 for 15 off 7 overs.