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Vaux Northern League: Chorley 152-9 Darwen 156-7 (Chorley 2pts, Darwen 12)

IN a tense finish to a very competitive match at Windsor Park, Darwen beat Chorley by three wickets with just six balls to spare.

It was a well deserved victory, fashioned from the day's two outstanding individual bowling and batting performances by skipper Jeff Hacking and Neil Cordingely.

Hacking's control and nagging accuracy kept the brakes on the Chorley innings and he finished with excellent figures of 13-4-40-6.

Although four batsmen got into the 20s, Chorley were never allowed to dominate and they were mainly indebted to Michael Critchley's 25 for their recovery from 80-5 to a respectable total of 152-9.

The Darwen innings followed a similar pattern to Chorley's and they were in trouble themselves at 92-6, despite a hard hit 24 from professional Petrie. But Neil Cordingely (48no) produced a gem of an innings just when it was needed, combining watchful defence with the unerring ability to dispatch the bad ball. With four overs left and 24 needed, Darwen still had plenty to do but Cordingley cut loose with boundaries off Iqbal Patel before two lusty blows by Paul Rodden in Keith Eccleshare's penultimate over finished the match.

Chorley bounced back though yesterday with a crushing 10-wicket win over Highfield in the National Club Knockout thanks to an unbroken stand of 186 between Jim Fazackerley (126 no) and Neil Bannister (55 no).