By Mike Cregan

The first round of the Lawrenson Cup – a “plate” competition for those who lost in the 1^st round of the Ramsbottom Cup saw Barrowford, Cherry Tree, Foulridge, Walkden, Stacksteads, Whalley, Little Lever and Burnley Belvedere go through to the last 8.

Burnley Belvedere went through with a quite remarkable 333 run win as they visited Foulridge 2nds. Batting first they smashed their way to 373-7 led by Husnain Ateeq who made 122 whilst Ayaz Hussain 80, Naeem Syed 57 and Ali Zar 41 also filled their boots with Daniel Kelly taking 3/67. The Foulridge batting then had simply no answer to a superb spell of 7/16 from Aadil Hussain and with a top score of just 5 collapsed to a paltry 40 all out.

Cherry Tree entertained Ribblesdale Wanderers and moved into the next round following a comfortable win by 97 runs. Kevin Reed led the way for Tree with 75 and got good support from Dan Lord 38, Joe Ince 27 and Craig Kennedy 25 as they reached 208-6. Lord then took 5/25 as Ribblesdale were restricted to 111 in reply with most of those coming from Martin Wrigley 36and Joe Briggs 21.

Foulridge 1sts progressed courtesy of a 148 run win over Oswaldtwistle Immanuel at Church Road. Foulridge went in first and rattled up an imposing 258-6 with good knocks coming from Jon Swarbrick 52, Sardar Asghar 44, Jabbran Sajjad 34, Ajmal Chaudhry 32 and Mohammed Haroon 46*. Ossy never really threatened to chase the runs as they fell away to 110 all out in reply. Mohammed Jalgaonkar 29 and Zameer Hussain 27 provided the only real threat as Rashid Rasheed took 3/30.

Walkden’s batters were also in fine form as they crashed the Eagley bowling around to make a massive 270-8 despite the efforts of Seb Wilcox who took a fine 4/39. Sehran Khan made 79 not out with Naveed Khan 73 and Muhammed Shoaib 71 also passing the 70 mark. Just 3 batters got into double figures as Eagley slumped to a meagre 88 in reply with Nabil Tahir taking 4/32.

Stacksteads came out on top of a low scoring affair at Barnoldswick as they eventually edged home with 3 wickets to spare. Just two of the Barlick batters managed to get into double figures as they struggled to just 94 all out with Max Hussey taking 3/7, Luke Davies 3/18 and Matt Croney 3/25. Haseeb Hanif then took 3/28 as Stacksteads found batting just as hard but 24 from Umair Khan helped them through.

In contrast Whalley eased to a 9 wicket win over visiting Brinscall after dismissing their visitors for 152. A stand of 124 for the first wicket between Gary Barker 96 and Liam Boyle 33* set up a comfortable run chase for the home side. The Brinscall score of 152 had owed much to the efforts of Alan Whalley 48 and Philip Jackson 38 whilst both Ehtesham Ali and Iby Hussain each took 3 wickets.

A cracking game at Baxenden eventually saw Little Lever come away with a 6 wicket after chasing a daunting looking target of 243 down. Louis Partington led the way for the visitors with a fine 97 with Jack Barlow adding 35 and Gareth Moxon 37* in support to see their side home. Earlier a splendid 123 off 108 balls from Rohid Ashraf had helped set up a total of 242-6 for the home side as Marco Bellanco made 30 and Haider Ali 25* with Ben Oxborough taking 3/38.

Barrowford 2nds progressed by virtue of a concession from Chatburn.