Hartshead Moor unable to spoil Morley’s title party

Scholes CC have won promotion from JCT600 Bradford League Division Two

There was a celebratory mood at Scatcherd Lane ahead of the final round of second division matches as Morley were presented with the championship trophy.

Even a heavy rain shower couldn’t put a dampener on the celebrations as Morley recorded a 77-run win.

Morley made 212-8 in a match reduced to 35 overs per side with opener James McNichol again leading the way.

The 20-year-old made 85 and was backed up by wicketkeeper Luke Heinemann (41) in the face of some good bowling by Arun Balaubramanian (5-55)

Young pace bowler Ben Jenkinson took 6-22 as Morley completed their championship winning campaign in style.

The 18-year-old’s performance enabled him to replace team-mate Dave Nebard at the top of the Division Two bowling averages having taken 41 wickets at 9.88.

In contrast, Nebard suffered at the hands of Hartshead ’s Laurence Brooke and finished with 1-75 from seven overs.

Brooke hammered eight sixes in his 74 off 61 balls and his innings was the highlight of Hartshead’s 135 all out.

Morley’s match was one of four to go ahead as reduced-overs contests while Bankfoot v Idle and Brighouse v Gomersal were abandoned without a ball being bowled

Spen Victoria openers Adal Islam and Bilal Ejaz produced a 103-run stand as they put their side on course for a nine-wicket win over Windhill, who will have to apply for re-election along with Idle.

Islam made an unbeaten 72 while Ejaz scored 47 as Spen won a match reduced to 27 overs per side with 27 balls to spare.

Former Spen player Khalid Mehmood (33) and captain Zach Wheatley (30) were the top scorers for Windhill, but were unable to prevent defeat as Abbas Ahmed (4-48) proved to be the pick of the Spen bowlers.

Scholes are looking forward to top flight cricket after they clinched promotion alongside Morley.

Scholes sat out last week’s final round of matches, safe in the knowledge that they could not be caught by third placed Baildon.

Under the guidance of captain James Stansfield, Scholes won 17 of their 24 league matches and finished the season 50 points ahead of Baildon.

Morley’s win last week saw them end 28 points ahead of Scholes.