Rainhill fall to eight wicket defeat
Rainhill 106 (Mike Rotheram 24, Khalid Usman 23; Nathan Barnes 3-16)
Wigan 110-2 (Charles Taylor 48, Joshua Boyden 24; Liam O’Toole 1-24)
Wigan (24 pts) beat Rainhill (2 pts) by 8 wickets
Rainhill’s four match unbeaten run in the Premier League was ended at Wigan this afternoon in a disappointing match.
After the heroics against league leaders Leigh last week, the result and the performance were underwhelming.
Rainhill won the toss and elected to bat. Opener Ross Higham was out to the first ball of the match and, soon afterwards, prolific run scorer Billy Godleman also fell for just five, leaving Rainhill foundering on 12 for 2. Mike Rotheram (pictured) contributed a gritty 24 and Khalid Usman once again played himself in but, having reached 23, fell lbw to Nathan Barnes with the score on 83 for 6. Sam Williamson dug in and made a hard-earned 19 from 52 balls but the only other resistance came from Liam O’Toole with 10. Rainhill were all out for 106.
Early wickets were needed but despite Jamie Harrison beating the bat several times the openers moved the score to 34 before Khalid Usman made the breakthrough. There was a faint glimmer of hope Liam O’Toole claimed the wicket of Jake Leyland, caught behind the stumps by Simon Brown for 15, but Wigan were able to move smoothly to 110 for 2 in 26.1 overs.
Thanks to Peter Mercer for the match report.
Umpires: Chris Spencer, Paddy Brown
Scorers: Neil Girvin, Andrew Finneynnnnn