On a glorious opening day to the 2026 season in the Cumbria Cricket League the reigning champions Furness were among the runs.
Opener Lewis Gribbin scored 109 off 127 balls and shared a third wicket stand of 83 with returning professional Pramod Maduwantha (50) as Furness reached 241-6 in their 50 overs against Dalton.
Lewis Bayman was Dalton’s most successful bowler with 2-55 in 10 overs while new pro Vaibhav Bhatt took 1-38 from six.
Bhatt failed to trouble the scorer as Dalton lost half the side for 99 and were eventually bowled out for 149 in 37.3 overs, propped-up by Daniel Sharpe (49). Maduwantha took 4-30 from 9.3 overs and Josh Shaw took 3-20 from nine.
Cockermouth topped the Furness score at home to Millom as they went on to record a big win by 212 runs.
Skipper Matty Sempill (58) top-scored but had decent support from the returning Ryan Carruthers (38), new overseas amateur Jacob Madigan (29no), Sam Scully (23) and Tom Norman (21).
The total of 273-8 proved more than enough as Millom were bowled-out for 61 in 28.5 overs.
Professional Nathan Waterston top-scored with 19 but Lachlan Wilson (13) was the only other Millom batsman in double figures. Gabriel Drimmie returned the outstanding figures of 7.5-4-7-5 while young spinner Ethan Hardie-Knight took 3-25.
Carlisle 2nds made their debut in the Premier Division but were beaten by five wickets at home to Cleator but in a very tight finish.
The home score of 186-7 was built on a second wicket stand of 127 between Jordan Whinn (69) and Freddie Newton (53). Tyler McGladdery (2-28) was the most successful Cleator bowler.
McGladdery (46) opened with Ben Wishart (69) and together they put on 71 for the first wicket and it laid the base for the victory, eventually reaching 188-5 but with just two balls to spare.
Sub pro McGladdery has just returned to Nelson in the Lancashire League as professional and he has also played County 2nd XI Cricket for Lancashire, Warwickshire and Derbyshire.
Two new Sri Lankan professionals were in opposition at Fitz Park where Keswick beat Workington by two wickets in a low-scoring game.
Despite being on the losing side Workington’s Vishva Chatarunga impressed, top-scoring with 29 in a disappointing total of 121 all out in 39.1 overs.
His only real support came from Oliver Armstrong (21) with Dan Gaskell taking 3-10 from his ten overs, five of which were maidens.
Ben Sharp proved the match-winner for Keswick with a patient 41 not out which steered his side to victory at 125-8. Chatarunga bowled his ten overs, seven of which were maidens and took 3-5.
Keswick’s new pro Nisala Thiraka took 2-17 from 6.1 overs but only made five with the bat.
In the other Premier Division game Whitehaven beat Wigton by three wickets at the Playground after another low-scoring affair.
After losing both openers without scoring the Wigton innings was given some substance by Matthew Reed (22) and John Reed (20) but they were bowled-out in 39.4 overs for 130.
Billy Thompson (4-17) and Josh Foster (4-27) did most of the damage for Whitehaven.
It wasn’t all plain-sailing for Whitehaven who needed 51 (ten fours) from Stephen Holliday to set them on their way with new recruit, ex-Seascale batsman Adam Brown (22) and Kian Larmour (20) doing best.
Wigton pro Chris Hodgson (3-29) and John Reed (3-27) did their bit but they couldn’t prevent the home side reaching 133-7 at the end of the 30th over.
