RAIN last Saturday (June 21) at Fox Lane made sure that neither Leyland or Preston recorded their first victory.

Preston captain Graham Standering won the toss and put Leyland into bat.

It looked a prudent decision when Leyland professional captain Paul Tebay was caught by Roger Kaye off Preston's opening pace bowler Paul Richardson for six, with the score on seven.

Craig Gardiner and Lee Hayes restored the balance by adding 25 runs for the second wicket before Hayes was caught by Paul Paynter off first change bowler Roger Kaye for 22.

The third wicket fell at 84 when Gardiner was caught by Paul Richardson off Preston's leg-spinning professional Manoj Parekh for 30.

Mark Pallett and David Tomlinson took the score onto 102 before the former was caught by Graham Dobson off Parekh for 25.

Tomlinson and Nic Gore added 20 runs for the fifth wicket before Tomlinson was caught by Paul Paynter off Parekh for 18.

Chris Sim was next out with the score on 134.

He was caught by Lee Kearsley in Paul Richardson's second spell for two.

Ian Oakes departed at the same score, being caught by Antony Mann off Parekh without troubling the scorers.

The Leyland innings closed at 144 for 7, with Nic Gore undefeated on 21 and Steve Pallett with three.

Preston professional Manoj Parekh was the pick of the visitors bowling attack with a marathon spell of 23 consecutive overs, and taking 4 wickets for 53 runs.

Rain came in the tea interval and no further play was possible, so each side took two points each in a rain affected draw.

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