Weston rounds off wonderful county season

CAPTAINED by Barkisland’s Matthew Weston, Yorkshire Under 13s completed a great season by winning a thrilling Northern Counties Cup final for a fourth successive year.

In a tremendous battle at Woodhouse Grange CC near York, Taunton Festival winners Yorkshire defeated Roses rivals Lancashire in the showpiece by just one run. Weston won the toss and elected to bat. Weston and opening partner, Olly Lamb, set off steadily and progressed to 37 before the latter was out for 17 in the 13th over.

The total continued to increase slowly in the face of some excellent bowling from Lancashire, and when Weston was out for 37 in the 28th over the score was 73-2.

Noah Priestley (53) and Rhys Ditta (23) put together a good partnership of 58 before Priestley was out with the score on 139-4 in the 40th over.

The Lancashire bowlers continued to bowl well and took the remaining six 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 they needed to bowl and field well to win.

Lancashire’s innings set off well before George Horbury (5-1-18-1) struck by bowling Harry Singh in the sixth 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 Priestley (6-1-12-1) to put 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 five overs left, Yorkshire looked to have the game won.

The Lancashire boys had other ideas, though, as they continued to chip away at the target.

At the end of the penultimate over the score was 144-9 and the game could still have gone either way.

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 – just!

It was a fantastic game to finish the season.