SATURDAY saw the return to Alderley Edge of Jon Bean for the first time since joining Bowdon at the beginning of last year.

Alderley's openers, Mark Currie and Alan Day, played circumspectly taking the score to 65 before Day was adjudged LBW to Guy Emmett who was already half way through a twenty over spell.

Mark Walker fell to a sharp catch in the slips by Jon Gray and Currie fell for a well-compiled 43 when he was stumped by Steve Bramhall off Gary Yates.

Steve O'Shaugnessy was his usual calm self and Andrew Sharpe picked the bad balls and despatched them with some big blows.

Yates took four wickets in the middle of the innings returning figures of 19 overs for 64 while Emmett bowled 20 overs and took 2 for 66.

Alderley's innings stuttered to a conclusion when Manton declared on 209 for 8 after 55 overs.

Bowdon felt this was a very generous declaration and Stephen Ball and Anthony Crozier set about the task of overhauling the total, scoring 37 in the first 10 overs before the introduction of Walker saw Ball bowled.

This bought Bean to the wicket, all eyes watching and wondering whether his nerve would hold on his return.

With a big crowd gathering for a special presentation in honour of Pat Kelly, Bean began to cut and drive with ferocity and while Crozier was doing the same at the other end Alderley looked a little shell-shocked.

Crozier had scored 72 before he was bowled by Walker, who had taken the brunt of the punishment bowling 10 overs for 73.

Bean was joined by Gary Yates who played second fiddle while his partner went through to his hundred by hitting the winning four.

He was undefeated on 103 and said afterwards, "It was emotional in that Pat Kelly helped me so much early on in my career and to do on his day at Alderley was very special".

Bowdon ended up with 20 points to Alderley's 9 and next week entertain Hyde at South Down's Road.

Sunday saw Nantwich visit Bowdon in the first round of the ECB National Club Cricket Championship.

Bowdon amassed a daunting 265 for 6 in their innings, an uphill task for any team to tackle.

Nantwich's innings saw them bowled out for 171 in 42 overs.

All in all a good weekend for Bowdon, who now entertain Highfield from the Liverpool competition in two weeks time.