AFTER three drawn games, Memorex Leigh CC finally managed their first league win of the season against a dreadfully defensive New Brighton side at Beech Walk.

Once again skipper Dave Dove lost the toss and Leigh were asked to bat first.

After the dismissal of Andy Batterley, who was out to the first ball of the match, Dove joined Ronnie Davis at the wicket and cautious progress was made with only 27 runs being scored off the first 16 overs. The batsmen then began to attack and eventually Davis was bowled for 47 with the total on 73 after another splendid innings. Although still not at his best, Dove scored a determined 29 before mistiming a drive to be caught, making the score 89 for 3.

After Andy Mullaney had departed lbw for a well struck 17, Gareth Cross produced another characteristically aggressive innings full of sweetly timed leg side shots to finish undefeated on 63 off only 49 balls including 38 runs in boundaries. He was given forthright assistance in a fifth wicket partnership of 72 by Steve Bailey who was run out for 23.

A positive declaration was made at 192-5 after 50 overs, leaving the visitors with what transpired to be a generous 55 overs to reach their target.

New Brighton seemed to be completely disinterested in going for the runs having ground their way to 24-1 off 20 overs against tight bowling by Jo Angel and Ronnie Davis.

Dislocated finger

Leigh tried several bowling changes, one of them enforced by an unfortunate injury sustained by Greg Jennings, who badly dislocated a finger when attempting to take a return catch.

The game appeared to have reached a virtual stalemate when an inspired decision by Dove to utilise the rarely seen bowling of Andy Batterley paid almost immediate dividends. He dismissed opposing captain Neil Cross, the former Cheshire player, who was bowled without playing a shot having scored 27 off 91 balls and followed this in his next over by removing the obdurate Davis.

This initiated a collapse form 52-1 to 55-6 but a partnership of 51 between Burns and Murphy then provided some light relief. The return of Angel and Davis to the attack, however, as the light deriorated, made batting increasingly difficult and saw New Brighton dismissed for 125 with 5.1 overs remaining, Angel taking 5 for 21 off 17 overs and Davis 2 for 25.

This weekend, Leigh have two games against traditional local rivals, playing Wigan at Beech Walk on Saturday and Worsley away on Monday.