WHEN Peel Park skipper Nick Whittaker told his troops about their head-on clash with rock-bottom Everest, Paul 'Ned Flanders' Flannagan and Stuart Bibby took his words literally.

For the two Peelers made the untimely mistake of running straight into each other as they chased Shazad Hussain's boundary drive - right in front of the camera!

Now it wasn't as if the ball was high in the sky and both men were keeping track of the flight of the ball. No, the ball was zipping through the outfield but neither Flannagan and Bibby thought to look up and simply ran into each other - much to the amusement of their stunned team-mates whose first reaction was to ask the photographer if he caught the magic moment on film.

Thankfully for the two, the incident was missed but certainly not forgotten as they were only caught brushing each other down!

Flannagan - nicknamed Ned Flanders after Homer Simpson's annoyingly nice neighbour - presumingly said 'okley dokley' when asked if he was all right.

But while the incident was the undoubted highlight of this intriguing clash, don't let it take anything away from the high standard of cricket played.

The heat had dried out the wicket sufficiently enough that it turned out to be one of the longest games in the league's recent history. With the 100-mark usually good enough for a win, Everest must have thought they had it in the bag when they raced to 152 all out, with Nazakat Hussain and Ikhlaq Hussain in tremendous form hitting 81 runs between them with Ikhlaq top-scoring with 45.

And the Hussains were well supported by Asif Khan who hit a rapid 20 to make sure Everest topped the 150 mark for the first time this season to pick up a bonus batting point.

While it was certainly a day for the batsmen, Ian Jackson was the exception when the Peelers pace bowler took six wickets - including the last five to fall - for just 38 runs. Peel Park knew that a maximum six points would take them back to the top of the table and while nobody topped Ikhlaq's score, the Peelers showed a consistent enough batting display throughout to always remain in charge.

Openers Mark Rimmington and Phil Carter got off to a steady enough start, scoring 12 and 27 respectively before captain Whittaker came to the crease to take the score along with a confident display of batting to hit 29 before being bowled out by Saeed Shah.

And after a mini middle order collapse, Paul Brankin made sure the Peelers kept up their five runs per over with a top score of 35. After Craig Addison was bowled by Mahmood Ul Hasan for eight, Bibby and Tony Teasdale kept their heads in the final over with Teasdale hitting a match-winning boundary with three balls left.

While Bibby can take satisfaction in being there when the winning runs were hit, Flannagan was the only player to go for a duck, costing him a 50p forfeit towards the end of season bash.

Mind you he can always claim he was suffering from mild concussion!

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.