Old hands steer Atherton home

The ground was a credit to the hard work and dedication of groundsman Philip Tomlinson.

Atherton's visitors were Standish and a fair crowd turned up for a first sight of new professional Greg Dimery, and while the Aussie all-rounder eased himself in action with a creditable 29 and excellent 5-48 from 16.3 overs, it was two of Atherton's longest serving players who stole the limelight.

Paul Brown took the batting honours with a top score of 60 off 81 balls containing nine fours and a six. With the rest of the innings folding around him, it was left to skipper Steve Walsh, batting in the unaccustomed high position of number nine to supply a late flourish with 20 off 14 balls made up of a single, a three, a four and two sixes. It stretched the home side's total to 151 all out after 46.5 overs.

Standish themselves had a new professional on view, Pankaj Tripathi, and following his 5-25 from nine overs he opened the visitors' reply and set about the home attack in a manner that threatened to win the match single-handedly.

With fellow opener Paul Hassan playing the anchor role, Tripathi quickly reached 42 from 37 balls with five fours and two sixes. But with the total on 56 and Hassan's share just seven, Walsh introduced himself into the attack and immediately clean bowled Tripathi without further addition to his score.

The in harness with Dimery, who by now had abandoned his quicker bowling and turned to the spin variety, bowled out the visitors for the addition of a further 38 runs.

Atherton won by 57 runs as Walsh finished with 4-22 off 14 overs.

Batting hero Brown also got in the act with an excellent catch off Walsh's bowling.

On Sunday Atherton travelled to St Annes for the first round of the National KO competition but after Saturday's respite the foul weather returned and play was abandoned without a ball bowled. The teams try again this Sunday.