ILLINGWORTH St Mary’s consolidated their lead in the Spenser Wilson Halifax League Premier Division with surprising ease at Shelf Northowram HT, winning by a 151 runs.

Inserted by its hosts, five St Mary's batsmen scored 200 of the 238 all out total. Its top scorer was No 11 Matthew Watson (50) who shared in a last-wicket partnership of 87 with Jamie Moorhouse (48 not out) after Veryan Brooksby and Matthew Smith had both hit 41.

The Shelf response lasted just over 25 overs as three St Mary’s bowlers shared the wickets as the home team capitulated to 87 all out.

Chasing Thornton’s 156 all out at Grassy Bottom the likelihood of Triangle exacting revenge for its Parish Cup defeat looked remote when its reply stood at 91-8, Joshua Hutchinson having taken six of the wickets to fall.

However Nos nine and, George Palin (22no) and Liam Turner (41no), had other ideas and in a superb unbroken partnership of 68 runs, earned their team maximum points. Hutchinson finished with 6-72.

There was almost identical scores and result at second-placed Booth where it too won by two wickets, chasing the 154 all out of Sowerby Bridge.

At 125-4 the hosts only required a further 30 runs to win but it nervously lost four wickets before the tail-end earned the 12 points it needed to keep in touch with the leaders, Steve Shannon taking 4-23.

Previously Joshua Wood (44) had kept the Bridge innings together as Patrick Thomas recorded 4-40 and the earlier main scorer for Booth was Steven Senior (54).

Bottom team Sowerby St Peter’s went down by 128 runs at Warley.

Warley stayed in third place as Nolan Bottomley (69) and Mathew Whitworth contributed in a score of 232-7 and in reply at 33-4 Sowerby was basically down and out. Matthew Steers cleaned up the remainder, taking 4-15 – the visitors 104 all out.

SBCI did itself a massive favour with a seven-wicket win at The Astleys and moved three places up the table and out of the bottom three.

Mytholmroyd batted first and its 214-8 came mainly from the bats of Tom Earle (91) and Shazad Hassan (45).

SBCI’s Lewis Firth (83) was on top form and, along with Wood (43), set up the innings and it reached the target losing only three wickets.

Copley’s poor run of form continued at Oxenhope where it failed to chase down the home team’s 204-6.

At 55-5, with the visitor’s Liam Hickson (5-44) taking all five to fall, a score of that proportion looked dubious but Joseph Ousey (64) and Liam Dyson (41no) came to the rescue.

Copley started well on 145-2. However, after Oliver Thorpe (69) and Tom Fryer (43) had departed, the innings fell apart and seven wickets fell for 34 runs with the last two batsmen surviving the last 10 balls for it to conclude at 179-9.

Meanwhile, the First Division saw a enthralling encounter at Clayton where Bradshaw eventually won by 13 runs.

The match was peppered with excellent performances starting with the visitor’s batting as Si Collins (54), Matthew Crowther (45) and Steve Beck (40) contributed to 253 all out.

Clayton’s Paul Artist (95) and Chris Ramsden (53) chipped in with fine efforts.

Unfortunately, for the home team, after those three had lost their wickets there was a shutter from 173-2 to 240 all out.

Blackley put a dent into the promotion hopes of Great Horton PC as it won by the surprising margin of 143 runs on its visit to Ewart Street.

Batting first, the league leaders posted 227-7 with the middle order combination of Adam Tuner (49) and Mick Midwood (46) causing the most problems.

Those Horton problems escalated as nine batsmen failed to reach double figures in 79 all out.

Mount rattled up 307-9 against visiting bottom-of-the-table Bridgeholme as Anees Rawat (105) was well supported by four colleagues who topped 20 runs.

Mohammed Basharat's 62 at least put some respectability into a 193 all out.

Southowram continue to blow hot and cold and it was the latter on its trip to Upper Hopton.

The hosts could only muster 131 all out, of which Jack Stephenson (47) led the scoring, Qaiser Chaudhrey recording 5-27.

The target should have been achievable but, as no less than five Hopton shared the wickets, only two Ram’s batsmen reached double figures as it fell 51 runs short.

In the Second Divison, Cullingworth came within a whisker of pulling off the shock of the day as it needed only one more wicket to beat leaders Low Moor HT on its own ground – and that after being bowled out for only 77 runs.

Mark Stokes (5-21) caused all sorts of problems for the visiting batsmen and at tea his team must have thought a maximum was in the bag.

Cullingworth bowler Dave Robinson (5-23) led from the front, reduced the hosts to 60-8. It somehow scrambled over the line, even losing its ninth wicket with the scores tied, no doubt then having to listen to skipper’s Lee Broadbent’s reality check lecture in the bar.

Queensbury recorded an excellent win against Outlane, accounting for the Huddersfield outfit by 123 runs.

The Old Guy Road team hit 225-9, the Outlane response ran out of steam at 102 all out.