THERE was plenty of controversy in the quarter-final of the Cross Cup on Sunday when current holders Bury edged past high-flying local rivals Walshaw by just three runs.

Ashen Silva (54) and Mohammed Janghir (52) both scored half-century’s as Bury set their hosts a target of 221 after five runs were added to the total because Walshaw did not complete their last bowling over by the allotted time.

Darren Foy did the most damage with the ball bowling 4-44.

In reply Ally Dickinson hit 52 and Danny Hornby struck 30 to set up a tense finish.

However, Walshaw were left disappointed after they felt they should also have had five points added to their total after believing Bury also failed to meet their deadline of 7.45pm for the start of the final over, which would have put them on the verge of victory.

Instead they were all out in pursuit of the win, falling three runs short of the target.

Matt Smalley (3-47) and Neil Tong (4-55) were the pick of the Bury bowlers.

Walshaw captain Mikey Watt said: “We gave five penalty runs away in the first innings for bowling our overs too slow.

“It’s not the first time we’ve done that this year so it wasn’t massively surprising.

“However we did feel a little hard done by as the Bury batters were slowing the play down, changing their gloves and getting drinks here and there, so we didn’t think that was fully accounted for. But the umpires explained it and we had to accept their decision.

“In their innings we knew they were close to the clock. By the time we started the final over they were three or four minutes behind so we did feel like it was a bit inconsistent.

“But it’s down to our performance. We shouldn’t have given the five runs away and we should have won the game anyway.”

However, Bury captain Sean Gibson believes his side were on time throughout the game and the only reason why it looked like his side had run over was because of a delay in replacing Liam Riley’s broken bat.

“I was constantly checking with the umpires to make sure we were on time.

“We had 10 minutes to bowl the last over but one of Walshaw’s batsmen broke his bat and it took three or four minutes to get the replacement and that time had to be added on.

“If that scenario had happened earlier in the game we probably would have soaked the few minutes up but when it happens in the last over it was impossible to do that, so the time had to be added on at the end, which made it look as though we had gone over our allotted time,” he said.

Bury will play Blackrod in the semi-final on July 12.