Price hits century as Norden defeat Crompton

Norden Cricket Club

Michael Price hit a century as Norden defeated Crompton at Glebe Street on Saturday.

However, Norden's star of the show was young Lancashire Academy player Rehan Udwadia who scored 77 – his highest first team score for Norden – then took a brilliant catch and saved at least 30-odd runs with some fast work in a lone position close to the boundary.

Price and Udwadia put on 180 for the first wicket on a strip that offered a lot of runs.

It looked like being a mammoth total for Crompton to chase, but wickets started to go down and perhaps a final 252 for seven was thirty or forty less than what it could have been.

A mirror reply saw Crompton reached 130 without loss, but following the departure of some top bats the home side tumbled from being 177 for three to 199 for nine and then 210 all out.

Price was the more aggressive player in the early stages, and he reached his half century with a pulled four off Tolley out of 80 on the board.

The team century came up with just over 23 overs left, and Udwadia reached his half century soon after as Crompton’s bowlers struggled to make any impact.

Price moved sweetly on to 105, but he then skied a delivery from Simon Wright and Cummins took the drop behind the stumps.

Nick Brierley was out first ball, caught by Keegan Petersen, but Wright was denied a hat-trick when Ash Gowers appeared to nick the ball into the hands of Cummins. The umpire was not impressed with the huge, and probably justified, appeal.

Udwadia’s innings came to an end when he set off for a run and had no chance of making his ground when sent back by Gowers.

Simon North attempted to swing a Petersen delivery to leg, missed, and suffered the sound of rattled timber, and Martin Smith was caught in the deep the delivery after smacking Petersen for a six.

Petersen took a glorious catch to dismiss Harvey Fitton, and Gowers was last to go, run out for 29.

There were suspicions that Crompton might collapse if their top four went early, but there was no signs of an early breakthrough as Petersen and Josh Tolley creamed the bowling.

Smith, Hashum Malik and Nick Fairchild grafted without success, as did Price in his first five overs, and it was not until North introduced himself to the attack that the course of the innings changed.

Petersen blasted a North delivery to Steve Pimm at point, then Denis Louis was caught behind off North.

Steve Wright offered a return catch to Price, and Simon Wright was out to a running catch by Udwadia in the deep.

Tolley was still there, but with 94 to his name he hammered North straight to Pimm at point, and it was almost start the car time for some spectators.

Sami Ullah hit a late 20, but with the needed run rate up to 12 an over it was really all over.

Norden

M Price c Cummins b Si Wright 105
R Udwadia run out 77
N Brierley c Petersen b Si Wright 0
A Gowers run out 29
S North b Petersen 2
M Smith c Ullah b Petersen 11
H Fitton c Petersen b Zulfiqar 8
H Malik not out 2
S Pimm not out 10
Extras 8
Total (for 7 wkts) 252
Bowling: Ullah 5-0-26-0; Zulfiqar 12-1-55-1; Si Wright 15-3-57-2; Tolley 10-0-52-0; Petersen 8-0-58-2.

Crompton

K Petersen c Pimm b North 63
J Tolley c Pimm b North 94
D Louis c Gowers b North 0
St Wright c and b Price 10
Si Wright c Udwadia b Price 10
A Zulfiqar run out 2
S Rigby b Price 4
S Ullah c and b North 20
J Cummins b North 0
H Dean run out 3
K Dean not out 0
Extras 4
Total 210
Bowling: Smith 6-1-30-0; Malik 15-1-51-0; Fairchild 4-0-31-0; Price 11-0-55-3; North 10.5-2-39-5