\n They defeated Richmondshire by 101 runs to lift the Yorkshire Champions\u2019 Trophy play-off final.\n<\/p>\n
\n Already champions of the Attis Yorkshire Premier League North\u2019s Premier Division, Clifton were indebted to pace bowler Sam Grant, who caused mayhem in the second innings after Richmondshire had chosen to field.\n<\/p>\n
\n Clifton made 207, but Grant, who bowled a tight line at good pace with a hint of inswing, took the first six wickets after tea on his way to 6-27 as they were dismissed for 106.\n<\/p>\n
\n Player-of-the-match Grant said: \u201cIt has been a great day, although we could have batted a bit better in the first innings.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHowever, Liam Green, Charlie Rose etc. batted well at the back end and got us to 200, and with the ball it was one of those days where the ball swung nicely and hit the edge, and Matthew Firbank backed me up well at the other end.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was pleased that I got it on target a lot, and these are the kind of days that you play cricket for.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe have been in Yorkshire Premier League North for nine years now and the first year we stayed up by a point, but there is a lot of hard work behind the scenes via our coach etc.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt has been a real team effort and we are very grateful, and as a team we have been fantastic.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe league win was great, and we have won it once before (2024), and different players have stepped up at different times.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cPersonally, I have missed a few games with injuries, which has been frustrating, but I am happy to come good on a day like this.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe were missing our overseas Chris Dixon, who has been phenomenal for us this season, taking over 60 wickets in all competitions, but we were lucky that we had Matty Firbank back, who has been missing with a few niggles.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n As for next season, Grant said: \u201cWe have to go again. We are relatively settled as a team with a young average age – early to mid-20s – we are a good fielding unit and we have boys coming back from university.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt will be a challenge to keep that going and hopefully we can stay together for a few years.\n<\/p>\n
\n Clifton Alliance captain Liam Green with the Yorkshire Premier Leagues play-off trophy. (Image: Clifton Alliance CC)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe would like to target the ECB National Club Championship next season, which we have entered before but not really got it done, getting to a few group semi-finals.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSunday cricket can be tricky with availability, but if we can build that depth hopefully we can have a good go, but we have lads performing well in Academy cricket and they have lots of Sunday matches.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHowever, lads have come up from the second team and have done well so we would like to give it a go.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Richmondshire, who lost the 2025 final to Hoylandswaine at Headingley three weekends prior, won the toss and opted to field, Tom Fraine (50) featuring in two half-century stands for Clifton.\n<\/p>\n
\n The opener put on 54 with Josh Tynan (16) and 50 with Ed Wade (25), which set the platform, five team-mates also reaching double figures as off-spinner Joe White took 5-55 and paceman Max Percival 2-35.\n<\/p>\n
\n Former Durham player Gary Pratt was dropped first ball after tea by Wade in the slips off Grant, and it didn\u2019t get much better for Richmondshire as Grant tore the heart out of their innings by dismissing Sam Wood, White, Pratt, Bertie Morris, Alex Percival and Max Percival (four bowled, one lbw, one caught) to leave their innings in tatters at 28-6.\n<\/p>\n
\n The result was then a foregone conclusion, despite captain Rob Carr (34) adding 35 for the seventh wicket with Jake Percival (17), who was one of three family members featuring.\n<\/p>\n
\n Josh Dowson (19) then hit a few lusty blows for Richmondshire, who were missing Shafiqullah Ghafari (playing for Durham against Lancashire in the County Championship), overseas Lalith Mohan Akkaraju (gone back to India to represent his state), keeper Dan Hodgson (whose partner has just had a baby), plus unavailable duo Owen Kelly and Mike Layfield.\n<\/p>\n
\n Off-spinners Tom Brown (3-17) and Ed Burch (1-37) took the other wickets for Clifton, who fielded a side full of promising youngsters.\n<\/p>\n
\n Richmondshire\u2019s Harvey Websdale said: \u201cIt was a very good opening spell with the ball (by Grant) and sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say \u2018We were beaten by the better side on the day\u2019, so congratulations to Clifton.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cShafi will be available next season when Durham don\u2019t need him, Lalith has re-signed, and the standard of the league (North Yorkshire & South Durham) is getting better year on year and it is good to see our juniors coming through and playing for our first XI.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They defeated Richmondshire by 101 runs to lift the Yorkshire Champions\u2019 Trophy play-off final. Already champions of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-785334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}