WARRINGTON suffered a setback to their promotion title chase at the weekend playing away against Timperley.

Warrington restricted Timperley's batsmen with a tight opening spell from Hitchen and Coneeny. However, some uncharacteristically poor fielding and some amazingly good fortune for the Timperley batsmen, allowed the opposition to break the shackles.

A display of great negativity from Timperley saw them bat on to waste overs, which left Warrington 45 overs to chase 157 on a difficult wicket.

Warrington's reply began poorly, losing Agar cheaply. However, Smith, 30 and Hughes, 32, put together a partnership that got Warrington back into the game.

Lindop, 31 and Sleigh, 16, produced a squashbuckling couple of knocks to take Warrington within sight of victory. However, the loss of a couple of wickets and a shortage of overs saw Warrington's chase finish 25 runs short.

Neston reached 197-3 on a good track against the seconds.

Only Nick Houghton took a wicket early on. A late wicket to Jason Edwards and a run-out were Warrington's only other rewards.

Spinners

Dave Baxter, 30, and Ben Bray, 55, made good efforts but their colleagues succumbed to Neston's spinners.

Warrington fell short by 43 runs, a result that leaves them in a serious relegation situation.

Warrington Thirds won an entertaining game at Brooklands.

Steve Quick and Mike Lindop opened with an excellent 150 stand, both scoring their first 50s of the season. After that it was downhill all the way as the middle order collapsed and Warrington limped to 188-6 declared at half-way.

Douglas Cockburn was the mainstay of the bowling and skipper Caven picked up two tail-end wickets as Brooklands were getting close but Cockburn upset the woodwork for the last wicket, with only nine balls left to see Warrington home by eight runs.

Warrington Fifths had an exciting win over Middlewich by two wickets.

Musker took four wickets and Stirrup had two excellent catches in the deep. Middlewich finished on 167-7.

Warrington started badly, Stirrup and Dhingra addressed matters and Naseem and Dhingra put up a stand of 90. Naseem fell for 36 and Dhingra, 40. Boys and Musker added a further 20 runs.

Williams and Dawkins finished off the game with three balls to spare.

Warrington 1st v Timperley

Warrington

M. Agar b R. Harris 5

B. Smith lbw b R Harris 30

J. Hughes b R. Harris 32

K. Dyson ct M. Ward b N. Lucas 1

D. Lindop ct Higgin b N. Liddell 31

I. Sleigh b R. Harris 16

S. Batey not out 3

P. Agar b R. Harris 0

L. Nunn not out 0

Extras 16

Total 134-7

Timperley: 157. Bowling: P. Hitchen 17-3-48-2, J. Coneeny 9-2-19-1, P. Agar 20.3-3-60-5, L. Nunn 8-1-26-1.

Warrington 3rd v Brooklands

Warrington

S. Quick st Stenworth 12

M. Lindop ct Thompson 63

C. Jolley ct Thompson 2

A. Mitchell ct Thompson 7

B. Boys ct Thompson 0

A. Wooldridge not out 7

N. Addison ct Thompson 4

T. Corroboy not out 14

Extras 19

Total 188-6

Brooklands: 180. Bowling: T. Corroboy 6-0-36-1, D. Cockburn 21.3-4-15-5, S. Quick 7-00-46-1, S. Caven 9-1-21-2.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.