LEIGH CC are celebrating reaching two Liverpool Competition cup finals.

Earlier in the season they battled their way through to the Premier Cup final against Ormskirk and have now reached the Chelmere Homes Cup final where they will play reigning league champions, Bootle.

In their semi-final against Hightown, Tim McKiernan's men ran out comfortable winners by seven wickets.

Skipper McKiernan says: "Having been in the Competition for five years it's great for the club to be involved in two high profile finals during the year when the league has been recognised by the ECB as the premier cricket league in the north west.

"We are up against the two most consistently successful sides in the Competition over the last two years. However, we have good records against both sides and are more than capable of winning each game and bringing silverware to the club.

"Our league form has been a bit of a disappointment but in the cup comps we've battled through against teams containing Test, County and Minor Counties players. Following the exploits of the town's rugby and soccer teams it would be nice to think that the sporting public of Leigh would get behind us when we play Bootle at Beech Walk in the final on September 3." Against Hightown a brace of wickets from Graham Duddle, Dave Potter and Colin Smith, backed up by wickets to Andy Mullaney, Chris Hall and Mike Day, ensured the visitors were held to 176-9 in their allocation of overs.

In reply Hall fell just short of his maiden club hundred as he scored 92 at a run a ball, including seven fours and two sixes. A breezy unbeaten 28 from Steve Bailey saw Leigh home with the loss of only three wickets and with seven overs to spare.

While success in the cup competitions continued, Leigh's league form has suffered and a run of seven games without a win has seen them slip to sixth in the table after another stalemate at the weekend.

At Ormskirk on Saturday, the home side batted 65 overs to post 196-7 having been 100-7 at one stage. Despite another good knock of 52 from Hall and supporting innings from Day and Mullaney, both sides cancelled each other out and the game ended in an inevitable draw. With six games left Leigh are battling for the minor places but have the two finals to look forward too. They again travel to Ormskirk on August 27 for the Premier Cup Final and then entertain Bootle in the Chelmere Homes Cup Final the following Sunday.

In preparation for the big games Leigh are at home on the next two Saturdays to relegation threatened Lytham and Southport before making the trip to local rivals Wigan a week later.