White Coppice CC started the 2026 season with a clean sweep of wins on the opening weekend of the campaign.

After the 1st and 2nd teams won their opening league games of the season, Tom Dulson’s 3rd XI beat Wyre CC by 113 runs on Sunday.

In a weekend of highlights, the standout performance came from Anis Haider, who took 8-29, including seven clean bowled, to secure an unlikely 13-run win against Vernon Carus 4th XI.

Before the action started, a minute’s silence was observed for legendary local league cricket stalwarts John Smith and David Crabtree.

Vernon Carus 3rds 131-9 White Coppice 132-5

White Coppice 1st XI were far from their best despite kicking off their season with a five-wicket win against Vernon Carus 3rds.

Fresh from celebrating his 30th birthday, skipper Jake Smalley won a crucial toss and had no hesitation in bowling first on a soft green track in near-freezing conditions.

Matt Tinsley and Ryan Adderley, who has been valued at £13m in the club’s fantasy cricket league, opened the bowling and restricted Vernon Carus’ opening batsmen Andrew Tate and Mahroz Gill to 4-0 from the first four overs.

The honour of the first wicket of the season went to Ian Aldred, who induced Tate to glove an attempted pull shot to a diving Ant Dark for 12.

Matt Tinsley joined the party when Benjamin Khatri slogged one to Adderley, who took the first of his four excellent catches.

Coppice were guilty of bowling too many loose balls and dropping too many chances, and the home team captain, Kevin Strange, took full advantage with a top score of 52 off 69 balls.

At 93-3, the home side would have been hoping for a total in excess of 160, but Ibby Akram applied the brakes with a spell of 1-29 off nine overs, including three maidens.

Tinsley returned to finish with a miserly 3-25 off 15 overs while Nathan Shepherd ended with 2-30.

White Coppice’s reply got off to a bad start when openers Chris Maguire and Matt McGuinn departed with the score at 11.

Adderley and Richard Bush steadied the ship before the latter was plumb lbw on the back foot for 8 to leave the score at 27-3.

Jordan Halliday strode in at No 5 and was quickly walking back to the changing room after realising he still had his mobile phone in his pocket.

Halliday and Adderley took the score to 64, but the game was up in the air when Adderley was bowled off the inside edge for 20.

With the game in the balance, Ant Dark, who is sponsored by Juno Sport, immediately went on the attack, with his first scoring shots being 4, 4, 6.

Dark dominated a match-winning partnership of 65 for the fifth wicket and raced to his half-century off 32 balls with three fours and five sixes.

Halliday was lbw for 33 off 59 balls just before the end, but Akram hit the winning runs to secure 11 points.

White Coppice 2nd XI 65 all out Vernon Carus 4th XI 52 all out

Faced with a green top, Martin Cuerden lost the toss and his 2nd XI team were unsurprisingly asked to bat first in tricky conditions.

The combination of a bowler-friendly track and slow outfield meant scoring was difficult.

Anis Haider was bowled for a duck with one that kept low, but he was able to have the last laugh at the end of proceedings.

Cuerden and Russ Millhouse looked to steady things until Cuerden got one that popped up straight back to the bowler to be dismissed for 9 off 25 balls.

Jeff Smith and Chris Hoyle perished quickly to leave the home side scrambling at 20-4.

Millhouse and Anoop Appu took the score to 45 before Millhouse holed out after doing a lot of the hard work for the top innings score of 12.

This started another collapse, with Coppice falling to 65 all out.

Millhouse was the only player into double figures, with extras crucially top scoring with 21.

Vernon Carus were very good in the field, taking a number of good catches.

With the bowling attack at their disposal and a testing wicket, Coppice still held out hope if they could take early wickets.

This proved to be the case, with AAA Healthcare-sponsored Anis Haider taking two wickets, both with yorker-length deliveries, in his first over.

Jeff Smith took two wickets at the other end to reduce the visitors to 11-5.

Haider was unplayable and he took his first five-for for the club as Vernon Carus slipped to 28-8.

With the game looking in the bag, no one counted on Deepak Mohan launching a counter-attack for the visitors.

He showed his intentions first ball by trying to hit Haider out of the ground and was only saved by an inside edge.

He blasted a quickfire 26, with three fours and two sixes, and showed a comfort at the wicket that no other batter from either side displayed.

Coppice did not help themselves by putting down two chances on the boundary.

With the visitors needing 14 to win, and things starting to get nervy, Haider stepped up once more to clean bowl Mohan for an aggressive 26, then repeated the trick two balls later to secure a 13-run victory.

Haider’s figures of 8-29 are the third best in Coppice’s Play-Cricket history.

White Coppice Sunday 3rd XI White Coppice 195-3 Wyre 82 all out

Tom Dulson’s Sunday team celebrated the biggest win of the weekend with a 113-run victory over Wyre.

In better batting conditions than Saturday, the home team rattled up an impressive 195-3 off 40 overs.

Openers Janayed Ilyas (38) and James Speakman (48) shared a first-wicket partnership of 75 before being parted.

This paved the way for Elliott France to hit a rapid 57 not out while No 5 Hisham Changi chipped in with an unbeaten 18.

In reply, only three Wyre players reached double figures as they were bowled out for 82.

The wickets were shared out, with Mick Houghton and David Caple taking two wickets apiece. Freddie Caple also got his first Coppice wicket.