Michael Slack produced a captain’s knock to help steer Cumbria home in their opening game in the NCCA Trophy competition.
Chasing Bedfordshire’s 193-9, Cumbria were rocking on 142-6 but Slack found an able partner in Greg Cameron and together they saw the home side over the line still with four wickets in hand, and 5.1 overs.
It was a patient but authoritative innings from Slack of 56no off 102n balls while Cameron was more adventurous and his 28no came off 29 deliveries.
Earlier, a blast from Freddy Fallows saw him club 60 off 38 balls with ten fours and two sixes made out of 77 team runs.
But from there Cumbria rather stuttered with four batsmen failing to reach double figures, including new Lancashire recruits Harry Singh (9) and Steven Croft (2) among then.
That’s why at 142-6 it needed a solid partnership to get them back on track and Slack was able to fashion the victory with the help of Cameron.
Archie Houghton, who had done much of the early damage, was Bedfordshire’s most successful bowler with 3-28 from his ten overs.
Bedfordshire had won the toss at Keswick and elected to bat, but lost Sam Jarvis without a run on the board when he was brilliantly caught, one handed at cover by Croft off Slack.
Fellow opener Ollie Soames made 54 before he was bowled by Croft but at 95-3 the visitors had a solid enough platform to build on.
But several batsmen got in without being able to go on – Danyan Khalid (25), Matt Coles (23) and Nabil Moughal (20) – so that Cumbria would not be overawed by the eventual target they set of less than four an over.
Singh (3-44) off nine overs was the most successful bowler for Cumbria and Slack (1-12) the most economical while Croft had 2-34 from ten and Ed Moulton (2-40) from his 10 overs.
