The York Senior League suffered one of its worst days for a number of years when widespread rain affected virtually every game across the League's wide geographical area.

Arguably the man to rue most the unkind elements was Thorp Ach and Boston Spa all-rounder Andy Heaps, who produced the outstanding performance of the day in the division six encounter at home to Cawood.

The rains also denied the home side a major victory which would have finally purged any lingering possibility of having to seek re-election.

Heaps started his glorious one-man show when he carved out his side's top score of 83.

He then initiated a searing spell of bowling which saw him perform a hat-trick as he claimed 6-18 to plunge the visitors to the brink of defeat.

In addition to Heaps' exploits with the bat, major innings by Jim Turner (52) and James Orrell (42) had taken the Boston Spa ranks to 243-9, despite a great effort by John Gibson, who took 6-95.

However, his efforts were then wasted by his batsmen who had no answer to Heaps' bowling and had slipped to 79-9 in 28.4 overs before heavy rain ruiined the day for the home outfit.

In the entire League programme, only two matches were played to a conclusion out of the scheduled 42 with no play at all in more than a quarter of the day's schedule.

Just 70 overs were sent down in the six premier division games leaving all 12 teams to take nine points.

One of the games to make reasonable progress saw Beverley Town reach 114-2 at Sheriff Hutton Bridge before the abandonment came after 33 overs.

James Hodgson and Paul Groves had reached 52 before Hodgson was bowled by Paul Oldfield for 31.

Groves quickly followed when, after making 22, he was bowled by Dave Houldridge but Ollie Grantham with 35no and Jamie Mitchell 20no restored the balance in Town's favour by taking the total to 114-2 before the umpires called a halt.

Easingwold batted first at Acomb and lost skipper Martin Piercy, who was caught by Andy Sykes off the bowling of Dave Sykes before the game was prematurely ended after just 13 overs with Easingwold on 33-1.

In division one, York II were no doubt relieved when their home game against Driffield was abandoned after just 11 overs as they had been reduced to 27-3 by Russell Robinson's 2-14.

A limited amount of play occurred in five of the six division two games with the match at Crayke, where 28 overs of the Bolton Percy innings had been bowled when the axe fell.

During this time, Crayke had looked likely to improve their position as Bolton had lost five wickets for only 79 runs.

Former Dunnington star and the League's first-choice spinner Steve Precious made a return to league cricket after a two-year lay-off when he took the field in Selby colours in the only division four game to progress into the second innings.

Reduced to 40 overs per side, Hornsea posted a total of 150-7 with Ben Wallis (54) and Jason Hickey (37) to the fore.

Precious marked his return with 3-40, while Richard Sherwood took 3-32 but Selby's reply, on 31-2, was curtailed after a mere ten overs.

Updated: 10:45 Monday, August 01, 2005