in thrilling Northern Counties Final.
On Sunday 27th August Yorkshire U13A played against Lancashire U13 in the Final of the ESCA Northern Counties Championship. Matthew Weston, the Yorkshire captain, won the toss and elected to bat at a sunny Woodhouse Grange CC, near York.
Matthew and opening partner, Olly Lamb, set off steadily and progressed to 37 before Olly was out for 17 in the 13th over. The total continued to increase slowly in the face of some excellent bowling from Lancashire. Matthew Weston was out for 37 in the 28th over with the score on 73-2. Noah Priestley (53) and Rhys Ditta (23) put together a good partnership of 58 before Noah was out with the score on 139-4 in the 40th over. The Lancashire bowlers continue to bowl well and took the remaining 6 wickets for the addition of only 16 runs leaving Yorkshire on 155 all out in 44.1 overs. The stand out Lancashire bowling performance came from Huzaifa Zubair with final figures of 8-3-10-5. At tea, the Yorkshire boys knew that they needed to bowl and field well to win this game.
In reply, Lancashire’s innings set off well before George Horbury (5-1-18-1) struck, bowling Harry Singh in the 6th over with the score on 25. Arav Shetty (34) continued to bat well but was losing partners at the other end. In the 19th over he was out to a superb catch from Alex Cree off the excellent bowling of Noah Priestley (6-1-12-1) with the score on 54-4. Spin twins, Clarke Doughney (9-4-8-2) and Jack Young (9-0-34-3) once again bowled extremely well and with the score on 125-8 with only 5 overs left Yorkshire looked to have the game won. The Lancashire boys had others ideas as they continued to chip away at the target and at the end of the penultimate over had moved the score on to 144-9. It was left to Harry Watkinson (9-2-37-2) to bowl the final over which finished with Lancashire on 154-9 and the victory going to Yorkshire by 1 run! A fantastic game played in good spirit and a credit to both sets of players.Thanks go to Woodhouse Grange CC for their hospitality and for producing a very good cricketing wicket.
For the Yorkshire U13s it is their 4th consecutive year as competition winners and was the final game of a very successful season winning the Taunton U13 Festival as well as the ESCA Northern Counties Championship.
Manager Dick Whaley praised the team saying ''They have developed an excellent team spirit despite above average team changes due to injury and unavailability. Throughout the season, they fought to the end of every game – even when a Yorkshire victory looked unlikely and finished the season winning 14 games and losing just one. It was a wonderful way to finish the season – the sun was shining, the ground was in magnificent condition, an enthralling game, an epic finish and a brilliant win against the “old foe” avenging the only defeat of the season.''