Under 19 T20 Club Competition

Dom Morris (Bury) and Daniel Buckley (Norden) at the coin toss

On Bank Holiday Monday, the second of the local under 19 T20 Club Competition double headers takes place at Radcliffe Road, home of Bury Cricket Club.

This new ECB competition is aimed at promoting player retention by giving cricketers outside of the junior game a chance to get together for a match with their old team mates.

Three local clubs, Rochdale, Littleborough and Norden have been drawn together in the Lancashire 'Green' group and they played the first set of matches on the last Bank Holiday at Norden CC’s Stag Park.

The first game saw Littleborough run out winners against Rochdale by 93 runs after setting the Redbrook side 150 to win. ‘Boro followed up a confident batting performance with some accurate bowling and quality fielding to take the victory.

Bury batted first in the second game and after seeing off the accurate spin of Adam Ahmed, Mukhtar Nasir (41) and Dom Morris (37) pushed the score along nicely. Some late order hitting from Johnny Budd (29) set Norden 143 to win off their 20 overs. Opening bowlers Morris and Sam Nolan-Massey got Bury off to a good start but a great rearguard action by Ross Collin (53 retd.) kept the home side in the game. Nolan-Massey’s 5-12 was to prove vital though and two stumpings and a catch for keeper Aqib Arif saw Bury win by 39 runs.
Overall, this was a great day out, enjoyed by all the lads involved and well run and hosted by Norden CC.

In Bury, on Monday, the entertainment starts at 10.30am when Littleborough take on Norden and this will be followed at 3pm by Bury versus Rochdale. Bury CC are hoping that a good crowd will be down from all of the participating clubs to watch some quality “pink ball” cricket and support this new and exciting competition.

The final set of matches will take place at Rochdale CC on Saturday 30 May.