Welcome return to form for Bacup 1st

It was a much needed return to form in an excel lent weekend for Bacup’s First Eleven last weekend, but there were defeats for the Second and Third Elevens.

- NEAL WILKINSON & RICHARD PARTINGTON

Bacup travelled to Rochdale on Friday night in the first of five T20 fixtures.

Skipper Ben Lord won the toss and elected to bat first. Chirag Khurana (26) and Lawrence Adlum (30) opened the batting and on a difficult wicket put on 54 for the first wicket.

However, with three wickets falling without a run being scored, Bacup slumped to 62 for 4. The remainder of the innings was dominated by an excellent innings of 45 from Jack Bradford which took the total to 126 for 6. The visitors would have liked to have posted a larger total. Nevertheless, it was felt that this could be a challenging target given the conditions.

This proved to be the case, as Bacup bowled and fielded superbly to limit Rochdale to 104 for 5, thus winning by a 22 run margin. The Rochdale professional, Henry Cooper, was unbeaten on 47, unable to increase the run rate in the face of some excellent bowling, with Ben Lord (2 for 19), Bradford (1 for 16), Dom Boardman (1 for 17) and Adlum (1 for 19) all amongst the wickets. Bacup now have three consecutive home Friday fixtures against Todmorden, Middleton and Rawtenstall.

Bacup travelled to Colne on Sunday hoping to return to form in league action. The hosts won the toss and asked Bacup to bat first after a delayed start meant the match was reduced to 46 overs.

After a steady start, with Bacup on 34 for 0 off 11 overs, the rain intervened again and the game was reduced to 34 overs. A solid first wicket partnership of 51 was ended when Adlum was run out for 23. Bacup professional Khurana joined Matt Collinge at the crease and was soon in free flowing form, hitting boundaries to all parts of the ground as he scored 86 not out in only 58 balls, hitting 11 fours and two sixes. With Collinge scoring 42, Jack Bradford 21 and Charlie Gansler 11 not out, Bacup were able to post a sizeable total of 195 for 3 in their reduced allocation of 34 overs.