A BRADFORD cricket team with a difference won a national competition at the weekend.

The Bradford & District Visually Impaired Community Club were in Leicester, taking on teams like theirs from counties such as Surrey and Berkshire, comfortably beating the former in the final game to lift the title.

Player and media secretary Owais Majid has been speaking to the T&A about the victory, and he said: “We were only formed a few years ago by a few lads, some of whom had played for Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.

“We went to Leicester for this tournament, which was a development one as we’re only a new team, and we won the whole thing.

“It wasn’t played at the county ground, but it was still a good one by the university.

“It’s normally a T10 format between eight or nine teams, but maybe because of Covid, there were only five teams this year, so it was played as T12 in a round-robin.

“We had three matches on Saturday and one on Sunday, and thought it wasn’t a final as such, the one on Sunday, it ended up being a winner takes all match between ourselves and Surrey.

“It was tense, but we were happy with our score of 108 batting first.

“It looked like it would be close when they needed 60 off the final six overs, but in the end we won by 15 runs, so it was fairly comfortable for us in the end.”

Talking about the club itself, Majid said: “We deliberately called ourselves a community club, rather than a cricket club, because we want as many people as possible on board, even if they don’t like cricket.

“We do tennis down here too for example, and we’re looking to set up a goalball team. It’s a VI (visually impaired) only sport which a lot of people aren’t aware of, but it’s very popular among blind people.”

Back to the cricket side of things, Majid said: “We’ve only recently formed, so we’ve not played any league games yet.

“We did have a fun game against a Bradford & Bingley team earlier in the summer though, where they played with specially-designed glasses on to replicate what it’s like to be visually impaired.

“On a more serious note, we had to play a certain amount of friendlies this year, which we have done, so that means we’re hoping to participate in a regional league for 2022.

“That would involve ourselves, Yorkshire (who are a separate team), Durham, Derbyshire and Wavertree (from Merseyside).”

Majid also added that his team are looking for sponsors going into 2022, to help fund their participation in the aforementioned regional league.

They will be travelling home and away regularly and posting on their socials, so there will be plenty of opportunity for exposure.

You can get in touch with the club via their Facebook page.

Alternatively, you can email them on banddvicc@gmail.com or ring the club captain/chairman Arif Malik on 07977 120668.