Cumbria travel to Bishop’s Stortford this weekend to start their second NCCA Championship game against Hertfordshire.
It will be Hertfordshire’s first game in the three-day championship this year whereas Cumbria lost at home to Bedfordshire in their first.
Cumbria’s hosts on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday have seen success in both the other NCCA tournaments this year – the T20 (undefeated until reaching finals day) and the One Day Trophy (undefeated until losing in the quarter final).
Hertfordshire warm up for the game by playing a friendly against a touring Grenada side at West Herts CC today so have yet to announce their side for the weekend’s match.
The squad has been boosted this year by the signing of Hassan Azad the former Leicestershire opening bat who has this year played for Northamptonshire with 57 first class matches behind him in the last decade.
Their most successful bowlers in this year’s trophy were captain Ben Waring and Jack Plom (formerly with Essex). Dominic Chatfield, Tanveer Sikander and Andrew Neal, along with Hassan Azad, were their leading batsmen.
The Cumbria side shows just one change from the Bedfordshire match with left arm spinner Matthew Siddall returning in place of seamer Ed Moulton.
Cumbria: Michael Slack (Carlisle, capt), Freddie Fallows (Kendal), Ben Walkden (Newton-le-Willows), Ben Davidson (Carlisle), JJ Fielding (Southport & Birkdale), Sam Dutton (Furness), Matthew Sempill (Cockermouth), Nico Watt (Carlisle), Drew Postlethwaite (Haverigg, wk), Sam Sharp (Cockermouth), Matthew Siddall (Cockermouth).
Both sides only won once each in last year’s Eastern Division 2 matches with the game between the two counties at Furness being drawn.
Overall the two sides have met 32 times in the championship since 1983 when the Eastern Division was formed. Results have been fairly even with Hertfordshire winning 8 times, Cumbria 7, three games have been abandoned and the rest drawn.
Statistically, too, Hertfordshire have been responsible for two of the top three scores made against Cumbria with 442/4 in 1998 and 405/7 in 2002.
The match is scheduled to start at 11am on Sunday, continuing on Monday and Tuesday.
