AN inspired spell of bowling from John Walters wrecked Stand’s hopes of retaining the Walkden Cup. The Prestwich bowler provided six of the best after he had been drafted in to replace holidaying skipper Chris Humphreys.
His 6 for 24 return decimated the Stand batting line-up, as they were dismissed for 84 in pursuit of a total of 215.
Under the captaincy of Chris Thomas, the Heys Road side posted a sizeable target on Sunday with a 99-run opening partnership setting them on their way.
Steve Orrell repeated the dose from the encounter seven days earlier with a half century before wicketkeeper Jack Bond claimed a fortunate stumping as the ball cannoned off his gloves onto the wicket.
However, Orrell’s innings clocked up the milestone of 10,000 runs for the first team, only superseded by Ken Morgan, with a record of 11,230.
Mike Hudson carried on diligently with Amal Dalugoda taking up the lead role with a fluent innings of 68, off 60 balls.
Hudson notched his first 50 of the season, and he was the second wicket to fall with the score on 176 before Stand launched a late fightback.
Amila Weththasinghe, Carl Sutcliffe and Stuart Catterall all picked up two wickets as they put the shackles on a late Prestwich run charge with some incisive at-the-death bowling.
However, Stand found themselves on the receiving end of another competent bowling display from the home side, backed by some outstanding fielding.
Phil Kyle was the “unexpected” source of the first wicket with a direct hit to run out the stranded Matt Curphey with 8 on the board.
Dave Taylor was gradually picking up the thread with pro Weththasinghe and had made 23 when Andy Bradley trapped him l.b.w. giving the former pace – now spin – bowler his 1,000th wicket for Prestwich at first, second and third team level.
At 59 for 2, Walters then grabbed the important scalp of Weththasinghe for 22 and signalled a decline in Stand’s fortunes.
Then a wonder catch from Andy Bradley put the seal on Stand’s fate as he twisted high in the air at mid-on to hold onto a marvellous catch offered by Matt Holt.
A semi-final date away to Denton St Lawrence on July 5 now awaits Prestwich.
However, chances of winning back the league title suffered an agonising blow 24 hours earlier in a 40-over contest with their other close rivals Cheetham Hill.
Another well-disciplined bowling performance meant Hill managed an attainable total of 137, with Kyle grabbing the first three wickets in an excellent opening blast, while Dalugoda picked up 4 for 32.
Skipper Thomas led from the front with three excellent catches in the field, clinging onto diving efforts to dismiss pro Farhat for 10 and top scorer Anwar for 37.
But the Cheetham side then gave Prestwich some of their own treatment, blasting through the top order and reducing them to 53 for 8. It included a spell of three wickets in four balls for Mirza.
Thomas stood firm and was joined by Oliver Holt, whose initial job was merely to save the team’s blushes.
However, they pushed the score to beyond the 100-mark and the prospect of an amazing win started to gather momentum.
Thomas played quite brilliantly for 58 until he was stumped by Farhat off Mirza, who added figures of 7 for 53 to his knock of 30.
Even then, Holt, with Kyle as support, almost saw Prestwich home with one big boundary blow needed.
In the final over, Holt skied the ball into the gloves of Farhat for a valiant 35 and Prestwich were a mere handful of runs adrift, which caused them to drop to third place in the Lees Lancashire County League.
* Prestwich 2nd team’s quest for an eighth successive Hulme Trophy final was ended when they suffered a 24-run defeat to Stand on Sunday. However, they did register a 31-run victory over Cheetham Hill the day before to keep them in league contention.
* Prestwich first team face Denton at home this Saturday.
