Bootle edge home to secure Knockout final date

Aug 7 2007 by Paul Edwards, Liverpool Daily Post

FIRWOOD BOOTLE kept alive their hopes of winning the LCB Knockout Cup for a fourth successive year when they defeated Heywood by ten runs in the semi-final at Wadham Road on Sunday.

But Ian Cockbain’s men were pushed all the way by the Central Lancashire League side and victory was only achieved at the price of a pulled hamstring for the Bootle skipper which will rule him out of his side’s vital league matches against Fleetwood Hesketh and New Brighton.

Asked to score 227 in 45 overs to book their place at Aigburth on September 2, the Crimble openers batted in subdued fashion for the first fifteen overs and Gavin Reynolds struck a vital blow when he had former West Indian batsman, Sherwin Campbell, brilliantly caught by deep square leg Matty Lawless for 39.

Heywood, though, proved that they were in no way exclusively dependent on one former Test cricketer. With the former Lancashire Under-19 batsman Bobby Cross in fine form, the visitors needed 131 from their final 20 overs, and only when Cross was caught at deep mid-wicket by Ian A Cockbain off the bowling of Stephen Parry for 72, scored off 78 balls, did the odds shift decisively in Bootle’s favour. Heywood’s last pair needed to score 13 runs from Adam Warren’s final over but the task proved well beyond them.

The Australian finished with two for 30 but the most successful Bootle bowler was Parry who took three wickets in nine overs of left-arm spin albeit at a cost of 53 runs.

Earlier, Parry and Cockbain Snr had laid the foundations for Bootle’s total with a 78-run partnership for the third wicket before Lloyd’s quickfire 55 off 48 balls in 56 minutes had ensured that the visitors would have to score at more than five runs an over to win.

Bootle’s opponents in the final will be either Greenmount or Tonge, both of whom play in the Bolton League.