Lockett leads charge, but Chargers have final say

Salford Chargers 275-4 (Jamie Bendy 52*, Dharan Muralidharan 51*; Isaac Lockett 1-18) Mersey Rose 149 (Isaac Lockett 70, Ian Mosquito 13; Dharan Muralidharan 3-19) Salford Chargers won by 126 runs Scorecard

Mersey Rose hosted Salford Chargers at Wavertree CC on Sunday afternoon in the first encounter between the two clubs. Alan Hitchmough and Isaac Lockett were playing in the first game of 2026, while Heidi Page made her first appearance in hardball cricket.

Put into bat, Salford Chargers' opening pair negotiated some accurate bowling from Andrew Foster and Issac Lockett, but it was Dave Leivesley who made the breakthrough when he found a way through to Miles Waddington's pads to dismiss the opener for 14. Dharan Muralidharan then joined Daniel Parker and the second wicket partnership began to dominate the bowling, with both Muralidharan and Parker retiring on reaching 50.

Despite this, Rose were working well in the field with Heidi Page in particular performing heroics to prevent boundaries. There were also a couple of opportunties for catches, both of which would have been pretty spectacular, with Alex Leivesley not quite holding a catch off his dad's bowling and Anna Page getting fingertips to a difficult chance at point. Although luck was not quite on Rose's side, their commitment in the field never wavered.

The second wicket fell when Andi Page bowled Sam Butler for 4. There were further wickets for Aaron McKenna and Isaac Lockett, but the Chargers' Adam Rush (25), Nick Burrows (11) and Tom Lowe (23*) all made solid contributions while Jamie Bendy became the third player to retire after reaching his half-century. Chargers declared their innings after 40 overs on 275 for 4.

Heidi Page put in an impressive debut with the ball, bowling three overs of left-arm unorthodox spin, but was not rewarded with a wicket for her efforts. It was always going to be a tough score to chase but Rose got off to the worst possible start as Chargers' Tom Lowe struck twice to remove both openers early. Isaac Lockett attempted to engineer a revival, playing positively and at times aggressively, finding the boundary regularly. Wickets continued to fall, however, and with the target clearly beyond them Rose's batters opted to play for the draw. After Lockett retired on 50, Anna Page, something of a specialist at patient defensive batting, came to the crease and for a while it looked as though Rose might pull off some kind of result. The problem for Anna was that she could do nothing about wickets falling at the other end as lower order batters came and went. Eventually, Isaac Lockett returned with ten overs remaining. Could they hold out until the end of the innings? If you wanted to pick two batters to do this job it would be Anna and Isaac but unfortunately, with just over eight overs remaining, the latter was deceived by an inswinging delivery from Daniel Parker that hit middle stump. It was a ball worthy of winning any game.

On a positive note, Isaac Lockett's 70 (from 70 balls, including a six and 14 fours) is the highest ever individual score for Mersey Rose, and we weren't far away from earning a draw. Heidi Page is also going to be an incredible player in a few years!

Many thanks to Salford Chargers, especially for the way they approached the game (it is always good to play against teams who understand the ethos of friendly cricket) and for helping tidy up afterwards. MRRCC Player of the Match: Isaac Lockett

Heidi Page