After yet more terrible weather, there was an inevitable delay to last Saturday’s proceedings at Alderley Edge which led to the match being reduced to 78 overs with a 2.25pm start.

A crucial toss was lost and Edge found themselves batting first on a wet wicket against a strong Nantwich pace attack led by Cheshire’s Jimmy Warrington.

Edge found the going difficult with Warrington in particular a handful, and the home side under pressure to set a realistic target for their opponents.

Further rain delays meant an early tea with Edge in trouble at 83-7 after 27 overs. Only Adam Worrall and Mark Currie made significant contributions for Alderley with 32 and 23 respectively.

A late flourish from number nine batsman Ben Davis put some respectability on the scorecard as he played one of his best innings for Edge with 27 off 40 balls with Alderley just managing to use up their full allocation of overs when they were all out for 125 in the 39th over.

Warrington finished with magnificent figures of 8- 54 off 20 overs, but it has to be said that many of the wickets that fell owed a lot to poor shot selection by the home side.

After being on the ground before 9am it seemed to be an absolute age before Edge’s innings finished at 6.02pm after batting for fewer than 40 overs.

When Nantwich batted they initially looked in trouble but a fine 50 from Lancashire’s Louis Bentley put them in a commanding position.

Good bowling from Jason Whittaker with 3-56 off 17 overs, and 2-53 off 13 from Mark Warnes, delayed the inevitable but Nantwich were able to get home with six wickets down and two overs to spare.

A finish time of 8.02pm made it a long day for everyone involved and made the long-standing hope for a big improvement in the weather even stronger.

Edge are now below halfway in the table and need to step up their performances in the coming weeks if they are to avoid being dragged into a relegation battle.

On Saturday Edge face the long trip to the Wirral to face league leaders Oxton hoping for an improvement in recent form.