White Coppice 1st XI and 2nd XI made it a Super Saturday, while the 3rd XI lost a thriller on Sunday.

White Coppice 1st XI moved to the top of Division Five on their own after a hard-fought 26-run win at Leyland 4th XI.

Leyland play their home games at Bretherton Cricket Club’s ground, which was looking a picture.

There was a return to the Coppice starting line-up for newly married Bobby Wood.

For the first time this season in the league, Coppice were asked to bat first after Leyland won the toss.

Chris Maguire hit two fours in the first over and shared an opening partnership of 24 with in-form Tom Sandells before the latter was LBW to one that kept low for five.

Maguire and Ryan Adderley took the score to 54, with both hitting six crisp boundaries before being dismissed for 30.

When Adderley was bowled, Coppice’s innings was in the balance at 85-4, but Wood and Anis Haider shared a 44-run partnership to take the score to 129.

Wood hit his second ball through the covers for four and looked disappointed to be given out sweeping for 28 off 40 balls.

Haider (26) and Ibby Akram (13) made solid contributions, but Coppice were probably 20 runs short after being bowled out for 178.

Leyland’s reply got off to a terrible start when Billy Fishwick was bowled in Matt Tinsley’s first over for nought.

It was a case of déjà vu for Tinsley, who took two wickets, both bowled, in his first over in the corresponding fixture last season.

Adam Huddleston took the attack to Coppice, twice hitting spinner Adderley for six.

However, his attacking intent led to his downfall when he hit Tinsley to Richard Bush at mid-off, who took a smart catch.

Tinsley finished with figures of 2-18 off 11 economical overs, but the match-winning contribution came from Haider, who took 5-39 from 15 overs.

The game was in the balance at 105-4, but Haider struck twice in an over, bowling Zeke Braithwaite for a stubborn 24 and then having Rob Bolton caught behind for 11.

Coppice fielded like their lives depended on it and managed to restrict Leyland’s batters to 15 fours and three sixes in 45 overs, compared with their own tally of 25 fours.

When Leyland slipped to 127-7, Coppice sniffed a 12-point win, but an unbroken partnership of 25 from talented youngsters Harry Turner (21 not out) and Owen Markey (11 not out) meant Coppice had to settle for 11 points.

White Coppice 2nd XI hosted New Longton 3rd XI and the cricketing world was watching Martin Cuerden’s coin-tossing ability.

After losing six successive tosses, Cuerden was hoping it would be seventh time lucky but, to the amusement of his team-mates and the 1st XI, he lost again.

This is now a 1-in-128 run, or 127-1 betting odds, as Nathan Shepard demonstrated during the week.

However, it worked out in Coppice’s favour, with them being asked to bowl, which would have been their choice anyway.

Anto Kuriakose struck in his first over for the second time this season, with Thomas Swindells popping up a leading edge to Elliot France at short cover.

Kuriakose and Ian Aldred bowled tightly to start with, restricting the scoring, and when Aldred got his reward with one that nipped back to opener Michael Jones, New Longton were 28-2 off 11 overs.

The introduction of Jeff Smith further restricted the scoring as he had the ball on a string, conceding only six runs from his first five overs, and he got a deserved wicket with the last ball before drinks to leave New Longton 47-3 at the halfway point.

Soon after, John Townson struck. However, this brought captain Matthew Clegg to the crease, who quickly decided the best form of defence was attack, hitting 39 off 32 balls, including three sixes.

He took a particular liking to Smith, leaving him with figures of 1-47 off 10 overs.

Townson struck twice more at the other end, with two clean-bowled dismissals, to leave New Longton 85-6 and Coppice hopeful of restricting the visitors to fewer than 100.

However, the visitors’ No. 8, Justin Abbotts, batted very well alongside Clegg and they took the score to 123-6 before the introduction of Adam Mannan proved pivotal, dismissing both set batsmen, including an excellent catch from Kuriakose at fine leg.

This left Coppice with a chase of 132 and, after back-to-back nail-biters, everyone involved was hoping for a much less dramatic second innings this week.

Cuerden fell early to leave the score at 9-1, but Smith and France were largely comfortable in seeing off the openers, with Smith unexpectedly dominating the scoring, including a second six of the season.

His latest maximum went much further than his first, with his team-mates deeming this one a ‘proper six’.

France followed suit but fell for 23 in the exact spot where Smith had been dropped earlier in the innings. However, the pair had put on 52 and given Coppice a very strong platform.

This brought in James Hurst, who carried on from his good form last week, hitting two early fours to settle any potential nerves.

The pair compiled a second 50 partnership of the day, with Smith bringing up his second Coppice 50 in his 249th innings for the club before falling for 50 with the score at 114-3.

Eyes were now on whether Hurst could follow him and hit a maiden 50, with long-time friend Matt Phillipson joining him at the crease.

Phillipson, who seemed determined to get his friend to the milestone, uncharacteristically played out 13 dot balls before Hurst told him to stop messing around and get on with it.

Phillipson replied with back-to-back boundaries, leaving Hurst short of his half-century but still with time to hit the winning runs as Coppice ran out comfortable winners by seven wickets with nine overs to spare.

White Coppice 3rd XI lost an absolute thriller against Gregson Lane on Sunday.

The topsy-turvy game could have gone either way before a last-wicket partnership of 13 saw Gregson Lane overhaul Coppice’s total of 92 all out.

Batting first, Coppice’s innings can be summed up by the fact that only three players reached double figures and there were four ducks.

Junayed Ilyas (16), Vincent James (29) and Dan Warbrick (10) all made starts as Coppice were bowled out for 92 in 37 overs.

In reply, Syed Bukhari ripped out both openers on his way to impressive figures of 2-8 from eight overs.

When Gregson Lane slipped to 37-6, there looked to be only one winner.

However, Carl Glover (24) and Josh Kay (19) took the score to 81 before falling in quick succession.

Kamran Hassan impressed with figures of 2-8 from seven overs, but Gregson Lane’s last pair saw them over the line.