Ormskirk skipper Gary Knight rounded off his day by winning a bottle of wine in Rainford’s President’s Day raffle – but his side left little else to chance.

On a pitch perfectly suited to the home side’s canny spinners, the defending champions took a painstaking 54.4 overs to chase 135, ensuring a four-wicket win that kept them within touching distance of leaders Northern.

Knight was indebted to a bloodless 48 off 124 balls from Calum Turner and a mature performance from young Australian all-rounder Tommy Brown.

The former made his name as a swashbuckling opener and blasted five centuries on his way to 1,000 runs with Formby in 2022.

Since moving to Brook Lane, he has yet to make another league ton – but has discovered a few more strings to his bow. 

Here, he endured for more than two hours as John Dotters and Andy Davies twirled away, with a tight ring field making the batters work for every run.

Davies had Sam Holden caught and Harvey Rankin stumped, both tempted by the short straight boundaries, and Dotters proved that even defence wasn’t easy by bowling both George Politis and Knight.

When Turner disturbed his own bails two runs shy of a half-century, the visitors still needed 33, with only Brown and the tail to keep John Armstrong company.

Many teenagers would have gone for glory, but Brown played it cool, rotating the strike and waiting to punish the rare loose balls. 

By the time he gave Jason Login a return catch, the scores were level, and Armstrong delivered the finishing blow with a straight four off Dotters.

Knight, whose side remain five points behind Northern, said: “Calum batted really sensibly and maturely, it could have been a tricky chase otherwise.

“We didn’t bring Tommy over expecting the world from him, but to have moments when he can win games for us. He’s shown that today – it’s exactly why we signed him. 

“We’re not focused on anyone else, we just need to get our own points and see how it goes over the next four or five weeks.”

Rainford’s president, Tony Ford, used his after-game speech to reflect on the club’s recent successes under Dotters, and his pride at seeing them compete on the same level as sides like Ormskirk.

They might have done more than compete on Saturday, had one or more of Login, Paul Farrar and Harsh Shonak turned their pretty 30-somethings into a more substantial innings.

Shonak in particular showed off a fine range of off-side strokeplay before cutting Brown to slip; next ball, Dotters turned unwisely for a second run and was beaten by Toby Bulcock’s throw.

Shortly afterwards, Brown took the pace off and drew a leading edge from Farrar – 106/3 had become 118/6, and the rest offered little resistance, with Bulcock joining Brown and Scott Lees on three wickets apiece.

Knight added: “The pitch made it a slow game, it was a pretty flat wicket and wasn’t doing much with the new ball. 

“We were staring down the barrel of 200+ if Farrar and Harsh had got away from us. 

“But we squeezed it really well in the middle and asked a load of questions.”

And as the saying goes: If you don’t buy a ticket, you can’t win the raffle…

Northern earned another shot at national honours by winning the area final of the Vitality Club T20 Cup.

James Cole’s side beat Shaw by seven wickets in the rain-reduced final, chasing 124 with seven balls to spare from their 15 overs.

Earlier, they had squeaked through by a solitary run against Blackpool, defending their total of 141/9.

It was a successful weekend for the Crosby side, who stayed top of the Love Lane Liverpool Competition thanks to a 71-run win over Newton-le-Willows. Jac Kennedy starred with an unbeaten 105, before Tom Sephton sealed the win with 5/65 – earlier, visiting spinner Safi Abdullah had taken a five-for of his own.

Karl Brown smashed 139 from 122 balls in Leigh’s mammoth 294/2 against New Brighton, with 81 from Tom Grundy and 61* for Harry Church. Finn Hulbert took 6/41 to wrap up a huge win.

Birkenhead Park are adrift in the drop zone alongside the Rakers, after Wigan chased 114 for a five-wicket win.

Ian Souness took 5/18 as Formby overcame Southport & Birkdale by eight wickets.

Pakistani all-rounder Khalid Usman made 95 – including a partnership of 146 with Luke Procter – as Rainhill edged a tight encounter with Wallasey. Evan Withe made 61 and Sumit Ruikar took 6/84 for the Wirral side.

Firwood Bootle went 40 points clear at the top of Division One thanks to a six-wicket win over second place Colwyn Bay. 

Sagar Trivedi made an unbeaten 49 off just 19 balls to wrap up the win, after taking four wickets.

Highfield couldn’t take advantage of Bay’s slip-up, as they were held to a draw by Maghull. Mohit Jangra made an unbeaten 102 for the hosts, but Liam Crilly and Nick Ritchie both made half-centuries in reply, and the visitors’ last pair hung on, just 13 short of victory.

Luke Prescott played his first game since May for Orrell Red Triangle and made 107 in their draw at Lytham. Zac Foulkes replied with an unbeaten 90, and the hosts closed nine down and 13 behind.

Ben Percival top-scored with 70 in Sefton Park’s 50-run win over bottom side Fleetwood Hesketh; Old Xaverians’ Kieran Hughes made an unbeaten 62 from number 9 in his side’s win over Spring View; and Liverpool’s Jared Clein fell just four short of a century before Ross Allen wrapped up their win over St Helens Town.

Hightown St Marys skipper Matt White took 7/25 as his side kept up their Division Two promotion charge with an 87-run win over Wavertree.

Sutton’s Joe Noctor top-scored in a 139-run thrashing of Whitefield which keeps the St Helens side in second place.

Caldy overcame Parkfield Liscard by 134 runs thanks largely to Asiri Gamage’s 5/9, after Amruth Devaraj made 87.

Ainsdale’s Stephen Lucas made an unbeaten 134 before Andy Barlow and Dilanka Auwardt each took five-fors in their win at Northop Hall.

And Alder’s Greg Harvey claimed 6/33 to set up a six-wicket win at bottom side Prestatyn.