LEIGH CC staged a tremendous comeback to gain an important victory at Northop Hall and moved up to third place in the Premier Division after being third from bottom two weeks ago.

Unfortunately this was followed by a disappointingly below par performance leading to a surprise defeat against First Division neighbours Newton-le-Willows at Crow Lane East in their quarter final tie in the Littlewood's Gaming Trophy.

In superb conditions, Northop Hall got off to a terrific start as the score raced to 44 off the first seven overs. Both bowlers were quickly taken off to be replaced by spinners Liam Zammit and Chris Melia and the course of the game was completely altered as these two bowlers soon gained the upper hand.

Bowling unchanged for almost the whole of the remainder of the innings, they took control after Zammit had dismissed openers Dyer (24) and Arshad Khan (28). Wickets then fell at regular intervals with the home batsmen always under pressure. Only a last wicket partnership of 21, broken when Ronnie Davis returned to the attack, helped to gain some respectability resulting in an all out score of 149 off 54.1 overs.

Zammit, with 6-51 off 24 overs, produced his best spell of bowling for the club in his last league game before returning to Australia, and the dependable Melia bowled as well as ever to finish with 3 for 42 off 21 overs.

Young quick bowler Mohammad Amin, recently recruited from Sussex 2nd XI, opened the bowling for the Smithy Lane side. Although Steve Mullaney (19) and Andy Batterley (10) had dealt with him reasonably well, Leigh were apparently well on the road to defeat after losing six wickets for only 61 runs with star off spinner Arshad still to bowl.

His threat was negated by excellent aggressive batting by Gareth Cross (57) helped by Dave Dove (21). When these two had departed with the score on 133, the tension increased but Greg Jennings kept a cool head and steered his side to victory by scoring 22 not out including the winning hit for four off Amin who took 3 for 51.

In the cup match, Newton elected to bat first and were restricted to 61-2 off 21 overs. Although opener Das was smartly run out off his own bowling by Cross for 57, Leigh's bowling and fielding were uncharacteristically deteriorating on a hot sticky afternoon, and Danny Barlow (64) and Mike Walkden (34) took full advantage as the score raced along to 194-6 in the 43rd over. The other batsmen maintained the momentum resulting in a challenging final score of 209-8 off 45 overs.

Zammit again bowled well to take 2 -21 off 9 overs and Steve Mullaney chipped in with 3-27 off 3 overs, but a liberal helping of no-balls and wides did nothing to help Leigh's cause.

Leigh seemed to be well on the road to success as the openers scored 73 off 14 overs before Batterley was bowled for 31. The out of sorts Tim Rees was out for six in the 21st over, followed in the next over by Mullaney after a fine innings of 58 including nine fours and a six.

As Barlow (4-30) and Scott (1-39) bowled their steady medium pace to good effect, Leigh's middle order got bogged down and, when the sixth wicket fell at 130 in the 34th over, things were looking grim. Hopes were raised by a good stand of 38 between Cross (38) and Dove which ended in the 40th over when Cross was stumped off Das. After Dove's dismissal for12 in the next over there was no way back, and Leigh finished 14 runs short of victory with nine wickets down. Jubilant Newton had thus pulled off another well deserved shock win following their defeat of cup holders Wallasey in the previous round.