Kibworth, Sandiacre Town & Malden Wanderers through to Semi-Finals

Kibworth, last year's losing Finalists, are through to the Semi-Finals once again. Northern scored 167 and Kibworth won by 5 wickets with 3.2 overs to spare. The winners of Chester-le-Street and Sandiacre Town will host Kibworth - in a game reduced to 39 overs-a-side Chester-le-Street scored 135-8 and Sandiacre were struggling at 60-6 but Ian Parkin and John Jordison then saw them home with the last scheduled ball of the match being a wide and then scampering a leg-bye on the extra ball required!

Malden Wanderers eased to an 82 run victory at Swansea and will now travel to the winners of the Bromley v Waltham tie. In this match Waltham scored 240-6 and Bromley were handily placed with 99-0 off 12 overs when rain interrupted play with the match eventually being abandoned and will now be played next Sunday (10th August).

The match at Kibworth was played in front of another extremely large crowd. The Lancastrian visitors from Northern won the toss and elected to bat. M Johnson (25) was positive from the start and was looking very dangerous as Northern quickly progressed to 37 without loss. Three quick wickets reduced this to 40-3 and J Cole (51) and S Cole (21) set about repairing the damage as they added 51. At 141-5 overs were running out and as Northern attempted to accelerate wickets tumbled and run-outs on the last two scheduled balls of the innings saw them dismissed for 167.

In reply John Hanger went early but Nick Ferraby (47) and Sunny Patel (52) took the score to 94 before Ferraby perished caught behind attempting a cut to reach his fifty. Charlie Morgan followed for a duck and Northern looked to be getting back into the game. Skipper Andrew Smith injected some urgency into proceedings with some hard running but when he departed with the score on 119 some nerves were visible in the large crowd. Sundeep Patel continued to play his anchor role and Tim Mason (22*) played with authority. At the departure of Sunny Patel Simon Renshaw entered the fray and played a controlled innings defending carefully waiting for his chance to strike the bad ball. Simon finished the match in style with two consecutive leg-side boundaries.

After the match both teams enjoyed an old-fashioned social occasion and before the Northern coach containing players and supporters departed Kibworth had accepted the invitation to visit their opponents next season to play two matches on the same day (1st XI and 'Oldies'). Given the partying on both sides this could well prove to be an event not to miss as Northern CC will be celebrating their 150th Anniversary next season.