Bamford u15s reach play-off final

Bamford-Fieldhouse

After the previous week’s shock defeat at Royton, Bamford had to win in a tricky fixture away at Micklehurst to be in with a chance of winning their group.

Unfortunately some careless batting saw the visitors slip to 32 for 4 after seven overs. The innings was turned round by a partnership of 39 between Ahmed Nawaz and Adam Ahmed, the former with a typical display, smashing 23 off 13 balls before being bowled.

Adam Ahmed then increased the pace along with new batter Callum Belfield (14) and they ran superbly between the wickets and hit the boundaries to push the rate up to six per over. The innings ended with a competitive 18 over total of 108, Adam Ahmed and Jack Langford remaining unbeaten on 30 and 9 respectively. Cauldwell was the pick of the home bowlers taking 3 wickets for 17.

After the break, Micklehurst looked to attack from the start but gradually the pace of Nawaz and Joe Smith-Butler began to tell and wickets began to tumble as they fell behind the required rate.

Bamford’s fielding showed a big improvement from previous weeks with good catching and a couple of run outs increasing the pressure. When Joe Mitchell caught top-scorer Daniels (20) off the bowling of Abbu Alam the home side began to struggle and ended up 24 runs short.

With the first part of the equation complete, Bamford dashed to Saddleworth CC just in time to see group rivals Shaw go down heavily to the home side which meant that Bamford took the group title by 4 clear points.

Credit and thanks were paid to Micklehurst for getting the game on after the recent bad weather.

In group A, Moorside ‘A’ were rained off and the two points they got meant that even though Austerlands won, they were unable to overhaul Moorside’s points tally and finished runners-up.

The u15s play-off final between Moorside ‘A’ and Bamford-Fieldhouse will take place at Moorside’s Turf Pit Lane ground on Sunday 21 August. The time is yet to be confirmed.