Wednesday 26th July saw three teams travel to Wolverhampton to represent Lancashire in the Chance to Shine Street National Competition Finals. The 3 teams, Manchester Lightning U12s & U15s along with Red Rose Preston U12s, came through local competitions and county finals run by the Lancashire Cricket Board.
The morning was spent playing group and qualifying matches, with both Manchester and Preston U12 teams starting the competition positively with comfortable wins, whilst the Manchester U15s were narrowly defeated. There was lots of quality cricket on show throughout the morning with the U12 Lightning winning every game!
Following the group stages, teams were introduced to the Chance to Shine Ambassador and England One Day Captain, Eoin Morgan for a Q&A session over lunch whilst the next stage of fixtures were finalised.
The Manchester U15s narrowly missed out on qualifying for the quester finals but both the Lightning and Red Rose U12s progressed. Lightning were again victorious, however Red Rose were defeated by a very strong Leicester side. Leicester's joy was to be short lived as they met the unstoppable Manchester Lightning in the semi-final, who again came out on top setting up a clash of the Roses in the final against Dewsbury Dynamos.
Yet again Lightning proved to be too strong for the opposition with a win over a high-quality Dewsbury side, led by another strong performance from man of the match and batsman of the tournament Hassan Ahmed Dar.
Rehaan Rather, LCB’s Cricket Development Coach & Manchester Lightning Head Coach, said: “It's a fantastic achievement for these boys to win this national competition. All of them have been involved in the Chance to Shine Street programmes from a very young age and none of them play at traditional cricket clubs. It was a very proud moment for me as coach to see their hard work pay off!”
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