RAIN fell in torrents at Lune Road on Saturday (June 6) both before Blackpool's game with Lancaster started and soon after the Lancaster reply had begun.

In between, Blackpool wickets fell with monotonous regularity and their reduced innings ended at 125-9 from 41 overs.

Lancaster had made 10-1 in eight overs in reply when the heavens opened once again and the match was abandoned as a draw.

The seagulls wandering around the soggy outfield at one o'clock were not a good omen for the game to start let alone be played to a finish and when more rain followed play was not possible until 3.15.

Lancaster won the toss, Blackpool were asked to bat and, on a pitch giving more help to bowler than batsman, Paul Simmonite and Martin Pickles gave them a good start.

Both played some superb shots, Simmonite a straight drive and a crashing shot through mid-wicket and Pickles the shot of the day, a glorious six over extra cover.

They had taken the score to 40 with the only alarm being a sharp return chance to Derham off Simmonite when Pickles was surprisingly bowled round his legs by the same bowler for 18 made from 32 balls with one four and one six.

The total had reached 69 when a disappointed Simmonite, 34 from 63 balls with five fours, played a dreadful shot to young Lancaster Grammar School off-spinner Richard Whittaker and flat-batted a wide long hop to Heywood at point.

This was the signal for one of Blackpool's now all too regular collapses to begin.

Skipper Gavin Wiggans unluckily played on to Derham for three before Robin Bracewell and Paul Danson took the score to 96.

Bracewell was then bowled by Jolleys for 28 to be followed back to the pavilion one run later by Chris Cornall, adjudged caught behind off Dennison for a single.

The score became 104-6 when Danson, 11, was smartly stumped by Hetherington off Dennison.

Wicket-keeper Pat Newell scored 11 quickly, including the only other boundary of the innings, before he was bowled by Dennison attempting an ambitious shot to leg while making room on the off-side.

Michael Moore holed out on the long-on boundary for five, Marcus Sharp was suicidally run out for three and Blackpool's innings had declined to a miserable 125-9.

Dennison, introduced as the fifth bowler, then returned the remarkable figures of 5-0 9-4.

The skies were darkening and there were distant rumbles of thunder when Lancaster came to the wicket and the openers, David Heywood and South African professional Andrew Lawson, found run-scoring just as difficult as the later order Blackpool batsmen.

With only two on the board in the third over Lawson cut Cresswell to point where Moore leapt high to hold a good catch.

Heywood and Dennison faced a further five overs, adding eight runs to take the total to 10-1 when, with Blackpool looking like they would make a fight of it, the heavens opened and within 10 minutes the whole ground was awash.

Both teams took four points, more welcome to Blackpool than second-placed Lancaster.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.