1st XI's unbeaten start comes to an end

Illingworth 172 for 9 lost to Booth 173 for 2 by eight wickets

Booth outplayed league leaders Illingworth to get their season back on track after a shaky start.

Illingworth chose to bat and, at 99 for 2, looked set for a competitive total. The removal of Callum Cook for 49 started a mini collapse, with two more wickets following not long after. Hamza Mehmood, a late addition to the 1st XI after Stephen Cook suffered a head injury in the warm up, anchored the innings with an unbeaten 54 but a total of 172 for 9 looked below par. Nigel Horsfall (3 for 50) and Moazzam Ayub (3 for 41) led the way for the visitors.

In reply, Booth got off to a fast start before Patrick Thomas was run out for 25 from Richard Smith’s direct hit. When Matthew Watson removed Robert Laycock for a duck in the next over, the game looked evenly poised. An unbeaten partnership of 119 between Steven Senior (76*) and Hasnain Wajid (62*) took the game away from Illingworth, who were left to rue a poor performance all around as Booth took away 11 points.