Lancashire League Handbook 2020

20 bowled by Dave Bowden whose 9 overs went for only 3 runs as Rochdale fell 48 runs short on 106. At Centre Vale, Todmorden hosted Clitheroe and a spell of 4/17 from 10 overs from Faiz Razool helped restrict the visitors to 127 all out. in reply Todmorden progressed to 123/2 before professional Alankara Asanka was out for 61, just 5 short of the win which would take them to the final. The final at Darwen was delayed until the reserve date due to the weather and was in doubt as conditions improved only slowly during the week leading up to the game. Todmorden won the toss and decided to bat first but wickets fell on a regular basis as a total of 137/8 was posted from their 50 overs. Chris Schofield top scored with 27 and skipper Andrew Sutcliffe contributed 21 late in the order. Darwen’s reply got off to a shaky start with Ammer Mirza falling with the score on just 1 but partnerships between skipper Scott Friend and then Professional Marques Ackerman along with man of the match John Cordingley, who was 51 not out, guided the hosts towards a six wicket victory in less than 40 overs. Darwen have now been Lancashire League members for 3 years, they have lost only one match in the Worsley Cup and this is their second triumph in the competition. The JW Lees T20 was again split into 4 groups of 6, all named after our sponsors products. Burnley won the JWL Bitter Group with Enfield as runners up. Rishton won the Founders group with Church taking 2nd place. Ramsbottom and Crompton took the top two places in the Manchester Craft group and Bacup and Todmorden went through from the MPA division. This created quarter finals with each group winner hosting a match. Church overcame Reigning champions Burnley by 19 runs at Turf Moor and Rishton beat Enfield at Blackburn Road by 4 wickets. In the other two quarter finals at Acre Bottom and Lanehead Ramsbottom were too strong for Todmorden in a 46 run win and Bacup chased down Cromptons 110 for the loss of one wicket to earn the right to host the finals day. Again, as in 2017 and 2018 the weather caused postponements from the original date and once again we had to revert to Bank Holiday Monday. Ramsbottom had Ashar Zaidi as sub professional for the day and in the first semi final he unleashed an undefeated 97 with nine 6’s as Ramsbottom made 193/8 from their 20 overs as they defeated Church by 81 runs. In the 2nd semi final Bacup restricted Rishton to 102 for 9 in their 20 overs with their professional Sachithra Serasinghe taking 3/7 from his four overs and he then went on to top score with 30 in a six wicket victory.