STRETFORD'S first team were well beaten by a strong Heywood team at Lesley Road on Saturday, while the second team enjoyed a 33-run victory thanks to captain Ben Riddell’s 6-19 and, on Sunday, the Hurricanes had an important victory against Oldham West first team.

In the Greater Manchester Cricket League Division One clash, the firsts struggled throughout with the bat with Gus Harman (27), Oral Rankine (14) and Mark Stamper (11 not out) the only players in double figures.

Heywood won the game with ease inside 18 overs, the highlight of the day for Stretford being 15-year-old Kamran Hussain bowling his first spell for the first team and taking the three wickets that fell for 23.

The second team's game at Heywood went to the penultimate ball as the hosts were bowled out for 150 chasing Stretford’s 183-8.

Stretford started strongly with Chris Sharp (18) and Matthew Armstrong (27) putting on 52 for the first wicket in 11 overs. They then lost four wickets for two runs as the innings teetered on disaster.

Fourteen-year-old Matthew Kilcourse (36) and 16-year-old Joe Weems steadied the ship with a priceless 57-run partnership in 20 overs.

This gave Jeff Marshall (34no) and 16-year-old Ethan Page (23no) the base to push the score to 183 with an unbroken partnership of 55.

After an early wicket from the pacy Weems the next four batsmen scored over 20.

At 126-4 Heywood were well placed, but captain Riddell started picking up wickets.

Page also took two wickets and 13-year-old Ibby Muhammad claimed one, helping Riddell to dismiss Heywood for 150.     

On Sunday, the Hurricanes kept up their charge for the title with an eight-wicket victory.

After reducing Oldham to 36-5, a mini revival took them to 137.

The wickets were shared between Usman Hassan (3-44), Weems (2-21), Peter Murphy (2-35) and Thomas Coulson (3-25). The Hurricanes took 35 overs to get the runs with Eddie McLoughlin top scoring with 38, while Sarfraz (20), Matthew Laker (33no) and Tom Syddall (20no) all chipped in.

This weekend sees the final first and second team games against Stand.

Meanwhile, Stretford’s Ahmad Muhammad was the leading wicket-taker in the national super 4’s tournament held at Loughborough recently.

Representing the North of England, Ahmad took nine wickets in the three games at a good economy rate.