Steeton pulled off a remarkable victory to join Rawdon near the top of the table - and keep their hopes of retaining the championship title alive.

Batting first against a very strong Rawdon line-up they got off to a good start, but the innings lost its way. Mick Wilson looked set before falling to a strange umpiring decision, but Neil Spragg and Matthew Pinninger took up where he left off, building an important partnership.

However, Steeton's batting began to fall away with Spragg's innings of 66 standing out. Robert Wynn also shone again with another experienced knock of 40 not out.

Their total of 186 should have posed few problems for Rawdon, particularly after they raced to 100-3 in 30 overs.

Rawdon's West Indian star followed up his seven wickets by smashing 50 from 20 balls before Hudson claimed the valuable wicket. The Rawdon batting collapsed as Steeton's young Yorkshire star, Guy Saxton ripped through the line-up, taking six for 60.

In a thrilling finish Steeton bowled out Rawdon for 177 to claim and outstanding victory. The win drags Steeton back into the title hunt ahead of their game against current leaders Guiseley tomorrow (Saturday).

Silsden went down to an eight wicket defeat at the hands of Follifoot despite a superb innings from Steve Collins.

He scored 52 not out, building a valuable fourth-wicket partnership with Dave jackson (44) to help lift the total to 135-4, but Follifoot knocked off the winning runs with two wickets down.

Once again Silsden 2nds built a useful score around Hugh Sugden's 82, opn an Illingworth wicket which gave some help to the bowlers. Sugden built partnerships with Stuart Tillotson (18) and Paul Tatterton (22) before Ian Sagar with 55 off 60 balls provided the impetus to take the score to 204-4.

In reply Illingworth struggled against some accurate bowling from Mick Hardwick and Dave baluk and after 20 overs they were just 30-2 as they batted out time for a draw.

They just held out at 139-9 with Hardwick taking 4-43, but the final wicket eluded the Silsden attack.