IN Saturday's game at Acre Bottom it took Ramsbottom's substitute Professional Chris Harris 24.4 overs before he got his first wicket.

But the Acre Bottom side weren't concerned one iota as the popular New Zealander had only gone for 54 runs in that spell, and this was the main reason why a powerful Nelson side had been restricted to a highly manageable total on a good wicket.

Coming into the game only four points behind the league leaders, the Seedhill side had hoped to make a good start, but although the opening pair managed to keep their wickets intact they had only reached 42 by the 20th over, when Crotty was caught at mid wicket trying to pull a short ball off Haslam.

This brought the Nelson professional Joe Scuderi to the wicket and he immediately impacted with some fine strokes mainly off the amateur bowlers. The scoring rate increased dramatically as he raced to his half century, and he was particularly punishing on the normally tight bowling of Mark Price.

However, the veteran had the last laugh when he defeated the former Lancashire player in flight and bowled him for an excellent 62.

With the score on 137 and with 10 overs remaining, it was time for the long handle and even Garaghty, who had struggled throughout his innings started to chance his arm. Despite this, only 46 runs were added to the total before the tea interval.

The Ramsbottom innings got off to a bad start with both Keith Webb and David Bell back in the shed with only 19 runs on the board.

David's younger brother Alex was then joined by Harris and they set about repairing the damage. They both played a string of quality shots in taking the score to 72 when Harris got a leading edge back to the bowler.

When Bell was trapped leg before with the score on 95 having made a fine 43, Nelson thought they had the game in the bag.

However, Ramsbottom are in buoyant mood following a string of victories, and Brian Taylor and Mark Dentith showed what confidence can do as they built up a match winning partnership of 81, in which they demonstrated how to play bowling on it's merits, smashing anything that was loose to the boundary.

Unfortunately both relaxed their concentration when the winning post was in sight and perished, but the Rams were able to cruise to victory having put a dent in the Championship hopes of another of the Title contenders.

Ramsbottom cruised to a comfortable win over lowly Accrington on Sunday, but were left regretting the fact that they could not claim the bowling bonus points.

The home side's innings revolved round their South African professional Andrew Seymore, but he should have been back in the pavilion as early as the third over when he was dropping at gully off the luckless Michael Haslam when only on two runs.

He seemed intent on not losing his wicket at any cost and ended up 93 not out when a century should have been his for the taking.

A target of 194 was always going to be well within the Rams capabilities and Keith Webb and Alex Ball got them off to a great start with a partnership of 97, before the former played on for a fine 53. Sub professional Pieter Strydom then joined Bell and quickly took the attack to the opposition with some lusty blows. Bell seemed to get the jitters as he neared his half century and fell agonisingly short trying to hit the ball over the top. Strydom and David Bell then continued the good work before both fell with victory in sight.