Ormskirk needed to win this game with maximum points to maintain the challenge of retaining the Premier League Championship. It couldn’t have gone worse as they suffered their biggest defeat of the season. Instead of the 25 points needed to keep in touch with the leaders Northern, they came out of the game with just 2 bowling points.

Nicky Caunce won the toss for Ormskirk and elected to bat.

John Armstrong and Ian Robinson opened the batting with Robinson hitting two 4s off the first over. It was in the second over, however, that the first trouble began with Robinson (8) being bowled to leave the score at 9-1.

There was some respite for the next few overs and the score crept up to 26 when Alex Rankin (8), who had replaced Ian Robinson, was out lbw.

It was when the total got to 40 that the real trouble began and wickets started to tumble.

First to go was George Lavelle (9) and then John Armstrong (22) who, up to his dismissal to a catch, had been relatively untroubled. A procession of batsmen back to the Pavilion followed and, before they knew it, Ormskirk were all out for a paltry 84 runs.

An indication of the poor batting display was that 11 extras was the team’s 3rd best source of runs behind John Armstrong (22) and Gary Knight (13). To be all out for under a 100 runs in under two hours and in 28 overs was about as bad as it could have been.

In reply, the Leigh batsmen made light of reaching the winning target. They lost just two wickets, both to the bowling of Alex Mason (2-20), and cruised past the winning post in 12.4 overs.

The game was over in three hours and the hugely disappointed Ormskirk supporters went home wondering just what went wrong. With Northern winning their game, any chance of finishing top of the League for this year is but a distant dream.