Little Lever in Hamer Cup semis as holders bow out

In-form Little Lever bowler Curtis Anderton returned remarkable figures of five wickets for two runs in the quarter-final of the JD Consultancy Hamer Cup against Farnworth.

Farnworth’s first three batsmen failed to score, but a half-century from Nakash Qamar and 45 from Ross Sutton helped them to 163, Adil Nisar chipping in with 3-35.

A 127-run partnership between Sam Fanning (72 not out) and Nipun Gaikwad (78no) took Little Lever to a nine-wicket victory.

Ayaz Tazawar’s half-century provided the backbone of Eagley’s 146-6, but 61 from Stefan Breuninger and Raveen Yasas’s 53 steered Earby to an eight-wicket victory in their last-eight clash.

Elsewhere, in an entertaining match, Astley Bridge put Tonge into bat.

The match started off well for Tonge with Sam Hardman and Dane Hargreaves getting them off to a solid start.

The top order took a liking to the bowling of opening bowler Ishy Patel, who apart from taking a wicket, was expensive going for a few boundaries in his opening spell.

The change bowlers of Faiz Khandu, Alexander Kok and Haaris Akhtar brought some control to the scoring with economy rates of two runs per over.

Jack Smith top scored for Tonge with a patient knock of 32 runs from 67 balls, while wickets around him were falling.

Once David Cryer bowled Smith out to get figures of 3-17, Astley Bridge bowlers produced some wayward bowling with a few wides and waist-high no-balls which allowed the tail end of Craig Naylor and Connor Lord to hit a four and six apiece to get Tonge to a challenging total of 162-8.

In Astley Bridge’s reply, they started off being patient for the first five overs, ensuring they did not lose early wickets.

After the fifth over, Millen Patel cut loose, hitting a few fours, while his partner at the crease, Akshat Kamath, played around him.

The first change bowler, Hasib Patel ,came on and made the difference.

With his left-arm fast-swinging balls, he had Kamath caught behind, clean bowled Millen and trapped Bronkhorst lbw - and Astley Bridge were in trouble at 58-3.

Hasib Patel and the wily spin bowling of Hashan Dumindu had control of the game, but a bowling change and the mindset of Astley Bridge’s Kok changed the momentum of the game.

Two no-balls from Justin Gilliland, along with the subsequent free-hits, allowed Kok to break free, leaving Gilliland with figures of 3-0-34-0.

Kok and Jack Bentham put on a partnership of 95 when Bentham fell for 32 with the score on 153-4.

Kok quickly extinguished any chance of a Tonge fightback by hitting Jack Smith for two boundaries off the 35th over to top score with 68no and win the game for Astley Bridge by six wickets.

Will Wrathall was Read’s hero as his unbeaten century took his team to a six-wicket victory chasing last season’s winners Padiham’s 187 to knock the holders out.