| Match Report
On a very hot day and on a pitch where they found it difficult to time the ball, St Annes totally deserved their winning draw. It was all the more creditable in view of a towering performance in the field where Wilks and Speakman took three blinding catches and an early back injury to strike bowler Ian Howe that forced him to limp out of the action and for Tim Rawstron to juggle an attack short of regular bowlers.
They responded superbly- no more so than Mike Harris who bowled unchanged- and deserved a better return than his already good figures. Mick Auty also stood up and was counted as he got rid of the top order in a fine accurate spell. Simon Owen bowled with great control at a time when things were going Preston's way.
Earlier, the batsmen mostly got in without ever making the art of scoring look easy. Openers Bernstein and Auty never looked in trouble as they put on 62 for the first wicket and Chandrasekar and Wilks looked comfortable until they tried to force. After Speakman's promising knock was ended there was quite a collapse but Howe and Rawstron added a few uncomplicated blows to reach a near par total.
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