ST ANNES had to be content with a winning draw at Vernon Road against bottom club Preston.

The visitors' professional and captain Manoh Parekh won the toss and put St Annes in to bat.

Adrian Darlington and Eldine Baptiste plundered the Preston attack to all corners of the ground.

They added 91 runs for the first wicket before the former was caught by Jon Fleetwood off Parekh for 55.

Baptiste took his score onto 79 before being stumped by Paul Mann off Parekh.

Chris Harrison was next out, without troubling the scorers.

Bobby Denning made a quick 33 before being caught behind by Paul Mann off Parekh.

Parekh picked up his fourth wicket when Paul Mann caught Russ Bradley for 12, leaving the score 189 for 5.

Gareth Evans and Neil Bradley shared an unbroken 33 runs for the sixth wicket before Brian Tennant declared on 222 for 5 off 47 overs.

They were 20 and 12 respectively.

This left St Annes 53 overs to dismiss Preston which they did for the loss of 7 wickets.

St Annes got a dream start when Paul O'Sullivan had Antony Mann caught by Eldine Baptiste without a run on the board.

The Preston second wicket added 57 runs before Gareth Evans caught an bowled Billy Druce for 23.

One run later, Paul Paynter was trapped lbw by Brian Tennant for nought.

Then the game swung to St Annes when Preston lost two wickets at 71.

Asif Bukhari was caught behind by Sean Bickerdike off Baptiste for 29.

Then Lee Kearsley was bowled by Evans for 3.

Five runs later Manoh Parekh was caught by Adrian Darlington off Evans without opening his account. Jon Fleetwood and Paul Greenwood steadied the Preston reply with a 33 runs partnership for the seventh wicket before Fleetwood was stumped by Bickerdike off John Cotton for 29.

Then, Paul Greenwood and Paul Mann featured in an unbroken eighth wicket partnership of 51 when the match ended.

Greenwood was undefeated with 27 and Paul Mann was on 26.

This Saturday (June 6) St Annes travel to Fleetwood and badly need a victory to keep in touch with the leading group in the league.

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