GREAT Horton Park Chapel made a dreadful start in their Bradford derby at home to Thornton in the Halifax League Premier Division.

They lost their first five wickets for 35, and it got even worse as they were back in the pavilion for 43 in just 13.3 overs.

Ross Parr (6-22) and Bradley Weatherhead (4-21) did the damage as No.4 Dan Pummell (18no) was the only batter to reach double figures, watching the carnage from the other end.

Chapel’s hopes were raised when they captured Thornton’s first two wickets without a run on the board, but Josh Hutchinson (39no) soon killed those off as a winning 44-2 was reached.

Booth’s win at Warley put 13 points of daylight between them and the bottom two of Triangle and Great Horton.

Results in the First Division proved as difficult to predict as ever as witnessed by top-of-the-table Oxenhope at home to Blackley.

The visitors were dismissed for 129 when double that score could have been expected, but only Sam Hesmondhalgh (46) and Liam Senior (33) coped to any degree with the bowling of Daniel Scott (5-29) and Joel Fothergill (4-29).

Oxenhope’s reply only just crossed the victory line with a wicket to spare, depending on the last pair of Scott Mallinson (16no) and Liam Witney (1no) to score the winning runs from 121-9 as Senior took 4-41.

As if to underline the unpredictability of this division, Clayton, visiting third-placed Low Moor Holy Trinity, dented the latter’s promotion hopes with a staggering 161-run victory.

Batting first, the visitors scored 213-8, as William Edden was in the runs again with 79 in 89 balls, backed up by a further 88 runs from three team-mates, Stuart Fenton finishing with 4-53.

What happened next is hard to explain as Trinity imploded to 52 all out, after opener Andrew Pinfield had scored 20.

No other batter scored more than five, Paul Gelder’s figures of 5-1 summing up the mayhem.

Clayton leapfrog Trinity as the latter drop to fifth.

Greetland, batting first, posted 208 in their home match against Shelf Northowram Hedge Top, with No.8 batter Muhammad Asif hammering 63 in 32 balls to progress the score from a problematic-looking 115-6, Amit Kaushik (5-66) taking his second five-wicket haul of the season.

Keir Litjens could count himself the unluckiest batter of the day as, in Hedge Top’s reply of 188, the opener was left stranded at 97 not out, no doubt blaming Tanweer Aslam (4-48) for not reaching his ton as he took the last two wickets.

Sowerby St Peter’s returned to winning ways with a six-wicket win at Queensbury that signalled a move back into the promotion mix.

The home team batted first and were restricted to 140, with only one batter passing 30.

The majority of the wickets were shared by Aiden Green (4-25) and Joshua Graham (4-52).

In reply, three Sowerby batters shared the runs, resulting in maximum points in the 32nd over at 144-4.

In the Second Division, Mount skipper Ismail Mayat (6-42) was the scourge of visiting Old Town’s batting as they were bowled out for 165, despite a 51-run opening partnership.

Surprisingly, Mount missed the target by 25 runs and their promotion push appears to be stalling as third-placed Cullingworth now stand just seven points away. Zulfiqar Ahmed claimed 4-42 for old Town.

There was a very low-scoring affair at Upper Hopton, where batting proved difficult, to say the least.

A total of 57.5 overs produced only 157 runs as 20 wickets fell.

Visiting Cullingworth had the better of the afternoon, scoring 97 and then bowling out Hopton for a miserly 60, of which Joseph Woodhouse hit 34.

Needless to report it was two bowlers, the home team’s Matthew Broadbent (5-48) and Cullingworth’s Scott Pearson, with a career best 7-32, who produced the highlights.