NORDEN

By Brian Sanderson,

My self and Bob Procter decided to visit Norden Cricket Club in the Lancashire Central Cricket League. The ground  is called Stag Park, Norden Rochdale.  The club was formed as Greenbooth Cricket Club but changed their name  in 1920 when they joined South Lancashire League. They have also played in the Saddleworth and Lancashire and Cheshire Leagues.

Today they were playing Royton  in the First Division and the match started at 1.30. The home side batted first with Daniel Salpietro, their professional , opening the batting. Daniel was born in North Melbourne Australia and is his second season with the club. His opening partner was Simon Harman who as amateur scored 202 not out in a Wood Cup tie  against Radcliffe.

The two of them put on a opening partnership of  87 with Salpietro on 56. He looked in great form on a beautiful batting wicket.

The second wicket partnership brought the score up to 178 and Salpietro had now reached 116. With nine overs left 250 looked likely.

This did happen with Salpietro reaching 166 not out in a total of 257 in the fifty overs.

During the tea time we went into the spacious bar area and they had a list of their Central League Professionals which include Cronje and Logie, not bad players at this standard.

Royton club  play at The Paddock Royton Oldham and were established in 1892. To beat the Nordon score their professional who is  Geeth Alwis from Sri Lanka had to equal  Nordon professional score. He has played 60 first class matches and has average of 35.03 , with a highest score of 219. However he was run out after looking also in good form after a  piece of good fielding. From this point  Royton were bowled out in the 39 over for 132.

Today was Daniel Salpietro day and the locals wanting him to score another one hundred and fifty tomorrow in a cup match against Littleborough while Royton play Rochdale.