League Round-up: Centurions celebrate League's elevation (25 May 1999)

25 May 1999

League Round-up: Centurions celebrate league's elevation

Andrew Collomosse

Batsmen in the Liverpool Competition went on a run spree to celebrate news of the league's elevation to Premier League status next year.

The weekend's 12 games produced seven centuries and no fewer than 16 fifties, with Ormskirk's David Snellgrove topping the charts with 135 against Southport.

Snellgrove, a Lancashire Board XI player, shared an opening stand of 215 with Kevin Burns, who scored 84, against an attack which included Indian Test player Abey Kuruvilla.

Cheshire all-rounder Richard Hignett hit 124, with two sixes and 16 fours, from just 97 balls for Bootle against Liverpool. And another Cheshire player, Neil Cross, scored 133 not out for New Brighton against Formby, for whom Andy McDowell replied with 109 not out.

Former Lancashire and Somerset all-rounder Andy Hayhurst hit 100 for Worsley, sharing a second-wicket stand of 203 with Heath Pedrola, who scored 128, and the day's other centurion was Aaron Kellett, with 105 for Northop Hall against Wigan.

South Riding League champions Elsecar's two games yielded no fewer than four different batting records. First Ifran Bhatti, who hit 121 not out, and Palav Patel, a Leeds University student scoring 101 on his debut, shared a club record second-wicket stand of 215 against Aston Hall.

And in the following day's Whitworth Cup tie, Mark Gee and Ainsley Swallow put on 272 for the third wicket, a club and competition record, against Avesta. Gee's 182 not out was also a club record.

In the Yorkshire League, David Byas's 15-year-old individual batting record was finally broken when Sean Pope scored an undefeated 202 for Sheffield Collegiate against champions Harrogate, beating the Yorkshire captain's previous best by two runs. Collegiate's total of 338 for five was only 13 short of Sheffield United's 1991 league record.

Another record fell in the Airedale and Wharfedale League where Addingham's 378 for five against Horsforth beat the previous best, ironically set by Horsforth in 1990, by 40 runs. Darryl Robinson and Phil Sant hit centuries.

So, too, did former Durham opener Stewart Hutton and Neil Russell for Marske against Stockton in the North Yorkshire and South Durham League as they combined for a second-wicket partnership of 217 in a total of 221 for one. But it was not enough as West Indian Dawnley Joseph (64) helped the leaders to a six-wicket success.

In the Leeds League, whose future remains in doubt following news that three more clubs are seeking to move elsewhere next season, Shaun Fitzsimmons hammered 190 out of 239 for nine for Pool Mills against Rothwell.

Lancashire League sides, meanwhile, won eight of the 13 games played against teams from the Central Lancashire League in the first round of the Lancashire Challenge Trophy. The highlight was Enfield's eight-wicket success over Heywood, engineered by Andy Barker (110 not out) and Dave Saker (107 not out).

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)