STRETFORD'S first team suffered double disappointment with back-to-back defeats last weekend.

On Saturday, they lost by five wickets to Greater Manchester Cricket League Division One high-flyers Greenmount before an eight-run defeat at Flixton in the final of the GMCL T20 competition.

In the league game, Stretford won the toss and elected to bat.

However, the batting – as it has done for most of the season – failed to fire.

Captain Karl Taylor top scored with 33, with Bradleigh Holmes, Oral Rankine and Matthew Laker getting 20s.

After a shaky start it looked like they would get a reasonable score but fell from 110-5 to 123 all out.

Ahmad Muhammad (2-19) and Taylor (3-16) had Greenmount at 42-5, but once they finished their spells the game drifted away.

The following day, the first team again bowled superbly restricting the prolific Flixton batting line-up to 101-9.

The wickets were shared, with Taylor (3-14) the pick and Muhammad and Rankine conceding less than four runs an over.

Stretford’s batting once again misfired and with Sean Chamberlain top scoring with 30, Adrian Holmes, 21, and Taylor, 15, they fell eight runs short of the victory target.

The second team faced Unsworth and fielded first.

Youngsters Kamran Hussain and Joe Weems bowled well, limiting the early Unsworth batting.

But the fielding did not match up to the bowling and too many catches went down, with off spinner Jeff Marshall suffering most. However, Hussain and skipper Ben Riddell both picked up three wickets.

Riddell started bowling off-spin then reverted to his medium pace which was much more conducive to the nature of the pitch.

The attack restricted Unsworth to 160-9 from their allotted overs.

Stretford’s reply could not have started any worse, losing prolific batsmen Chris Sharp and Matthew Armstrong with no runs on the board.

With not a lot happening off the pitch, the Stretford batsmen struggled with its lack of pace, finishing on 75 all out to lose by 85 runs.

Tomorrow the second week of the Ray Van Schoor Foundation six-a-side, while on Saturday the first team are away to Unsworth and the seconds at home to Ashton Ladysmith.