THE heavy downpours that descended on most of the League’s grounds at lunchtime on Saturday put paid eventually to all the fixtures with one exception – and what an exception it was.

In the First Division the quirks of the weather saw Batley escape most of the rain and Luddendenfoot capitalised in beating Mount by six wickets and, as a result, it now sits for the first time this season on top pf the Covid-19 adjusted table. The current situation at the top is Luddendenfoot (156 points), Sowerby St Peter’s (154) and Great Horton PC (151). And just to add further spice just take a look at some of the last three week’s fixtures – 28 August: Foot v Sowerby, 4 September: Sowerby v Horton and 11 September: Horton v Foot. To the wire is an understatement! On Saturday Thomas Hosker (5-34) and James Stott (42 not out) were the main contributors to Foot’s win whilst Mount’s Jabir Patel scored 43. Sowerby’s match at Oxenhope was completly washed out whilst Horton was in the driving seat at Upper Hopton bowling out its hosts for 122 runs when tea, and the rain, came, Zubair Patel having taken 4-13. The Low Moor HT v Clayton was cancelled for Covid-19 safety reasons.

In the Premier Division three matches started but were all abandoned with Oliver Thorpe (104) and Gavin Whipp (62) of Copley in form at Sowerby Bridge, Blackley’s Matthew Britton (69 not out) at Triangle and Razwan Saghir (79) & Daniel Cole (65) for Northowram HT all frustrated as their teams were certainly in with winning chances.

Notable performances in the Second Division were restricted to Greetland’s Tanweer Aslam (55) & Majid Jahangir (41) together with William Thickett (4-57) of Stones at West Vale, where the rain came after Stones had replied with 28-2 after nine overs to the 194-8 of the hosts. Whilst Queensbury also became a rain victim its six points gained in bowling out Bridgeholme for 71 runs may prove vital, in its promotion push, at the end of the season.