Hightown edge low-scoring match
Sunday team lose to Hightown St Mary's by 4 wickets
Rainhill 74 (Deepak Gupta 15, Motsim Khan 12; Harry Morrin 3-16)
Hightown St Mary's 76-6 (Matty Tamburro 19, Turab Ali 15*; Scott Clegg 3-13)
Hightown St Mary's won by 4 wickets
Rainhill's Sunday team fought out a low-scoring match with Hightown St Mary's at Victoria Terrace in which the visitors emerged as winners by four wickets.
Rainhill won the toss and opted to bat. Positive contributions from Motsim Khan (12), Deepak Gupta (15) and Kristopher Duffin (10) helped Rainhill on a pitch that made life very difficult for the batting team. Rainhill scored slowly and, unfortunately, lost wickets regularly as they moved on to a total of 74 all out. Hightown's bowlers will be pleased with their efforts, especially Harry Morrin who took 3 for 16.
Hightown St Mary's also found the going tough and, although young opener Matty Tamburro played a splendid innings for his 19, Rainhill's bowlers created difficulties for the batsmen and their efforts regularly bought wickets. Tamburro's plucky resistance was finally breached when he was caught and bowled by Scott Clegg (pictured) and, at this point, the visitors were on 46 for 5. Clegg bowled Scott Murrin shortly afterwards to give Rainhill hope of victory.
Having exerted pressure on Hightown's top and middle order for so long, Rainhill felt confident of taking further wickets. However, Turab Ali (15 not out) and captain Akshay Bhatnagar (11 not out) successfully negotiated the bowling of Kristopher Duffin and Amber Bowie to guide their team to a four-wicket win.
The match was followed by the annual ritual known as "bringing in the rope"!
The Sunday team's final match of the season is away to Wistaston on 26th September.