White Coppice 1st XI slipped to a 63-run defeat against leaders Chorley 3rds on Saturday.

In his 100th match for the club, captain Jake Smalley won the toss and decided to bowl after a rain shower had reduced the match to 40 overs-a-side.

All the talk before the match was how to get out the division’s best batsman, Alfie Dobson, whose six previous scores this season were 86, 48, 140, 116, 86 and 76.

The highly-rated 19-year-old returned to cricket at the start of the 2025 season after choosing to take a break from the game.

Dobson was dropped off a no-ball early on but smashed 44 off 33 balls with three sixes.

He dominated an opening partnership of 59 with Rob Gardner before being caught at midwicket by a diving Smalley off a leading edge.

Coppice’s joy at dismissing Dobson for his lowest score of the season was shortlived as Gardner survived a few early scares to top score with 70 off 93 balls.

The visitors were guilty of bowling too many boundary balls, which allowed Chorley to post an impressive 189-7.

Richard Bush (2-35) and Jeff Smith (2-33) were the pick of the Coppice bowlers.

The visitors needed a good start to their reply and reached 28 before openers Chris Maguire (13) and Bobby Wood (19) were separated.

Bush, who scored an unbeaten 51 off 60 balls, and Usmann Akram (13) took the score to 92-4 and an outside chance of victory but the last six wickets went down for just 34 runs as Coppice were bowled out for 126.

Dobson completed a good game with figures of 4-31 while Andrew Moffatt took 4-40.

White Coppice 2nd XI lost by seven wickets to leaders Preston Strikers in a one-sided match. Skipper Martin Cuerden won the toss but his batters had no answer to opening bowler Abin Vadakkan, who took 6-1 off six overs, including a hat-trick. Akshit Jagnani, who top scored with 11, was the only batsman to get a run off Vadakkan, who has taken 39 wickets this season at an incredible average of 4.59 runs per wicket. No 11 Anoop Appu hit a couple of boundaries but Coppice’s total of 45 was never going to be enough. Special mention to Anis Haider, who took 2-23.

Coppice’s Sunday team went down to a four-wicket defeat against Cherry Tree 4th XI but there were plenty of highlights for James Speakman’s team. Opener Janayed Ilyas hit a patient 25 off 77 balls while Adam Mannan hit 22 in a total of 89 all out. Special mention to Jack Dalziel, who took 2-16 (his first wickets for the club) and another excellent catch by Paul ‘The Chest’ Dobson.