Jer Lane complete Bradford Premier League trophy set

On a day when umpires Steve Dobson and Tony Hamer did well to keep the game moving amid intermittent spots of rain, Yeadon, who finished fifth in Division One and did a fine job in staging the final, won the toss and batted, making 182.

Jer, despite a mid-innings wobble, then made their experience count, winning with 14 balls to spare.

The Shield was the missing piece of silverware as they had already won the second-team Premier Division (2022), Division One (2021) and Conference (2018).

And it would have been a league and cup double this season were it not for the second XI being deducted 10 points for an administrative error, which effectively handed the trophy to Pudsey St Lawrence, with Jer finishing as runners-up.

Jer skipper Asad Khan said after the final: “If we had won the toss, we would have had a bat. As it is a final, runs on the board is quality and then you can try and strangle them.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t win the toss, but the wicket was a little bit wet so maybe it was a good toss to lose.

“After 20 overs we had them at 46-2, but they had wickets in the tank and could express themselves, but in the last 10 overs we only conceded 56 runs, and credit there goes to our bowlers Arslaan Mahmood for his three wickets and Jawad Waheed for his five-fer.

“We thought it would be a 160-180 wicket, but it got flatter as the game went on and we thought we might be defending 220.”

Khan said: “The plan in our innings was to stay ahead of Duckworth Lewis (which came into play 10 overs into the innings), and special mention to Arslaan Mahmood and Asad Mahmood who put on 102 for the second wicket.

“They made sure that we were ahead of DLS but then Abu-bakar Siddiq and Kamran Khan bowled really well and we had a wobble.

“We played a couple of rash shots, but we bat down to 11 and the weather assisted us as the outfield got a bit skiddy.”

Asad Khan holds the Priestley Shield aloft on Sunday. (Image: Ray Spencer.)

The start of Yeadon’s innings was all about laying a platform, but runs were hard to come by against Amjid Khan and Arslaan Mahmood and there was precious little opportunity for spectators to wave the fours and sixes cards that had been handed out to them.

Andrew Pickering and David Machell fell early, and it was left to opener Danny Hall (41) and elegant 15-year-old left-hander Seth Pickering (50) to pull the innings around.

They added 44 for the third wicket before Hall fell, and then Seth was joined by his brother, 24-year-old captain Simeon, who put on 61 for the fourth wicket.

Seth was out not long after reaching his half-century off 60 balls, including six fours.

Then Asad Khan (24no) batted with the tail to at least give Yeadon something to bowl at as they totalled 182, with Arslaan Mahmood taking 3-32 and Waheed, the seventh of eight bowlers used, bagging 5-44 as the last seven wickets fell for just 40 runs.

Seth Pickering, who looks a fine prospect, dismissed keeper Umar Dawood for five, but then Yeadon ran into the brick wall that was Arslaan Mahmood (52) and Adnan Mahmood (51), with the former hitting six fours and the latter four of them.

Jer were sitting pretty at 112-1 but both half-centurions went in quick succession, as did Haseeb Rehman and Waheed as they tumbled to 133-5, with Siddiq bagging 3-33.

However, Jer had the men for a ‘crisis’ in Asad Khan (22no) and Amjid Khan (27no) and they added 50 unbroken to take them to victory in the 38th over, which was deeper in the innings than seemed likely for much of it.

Arslaan Mahmood was named player of the match for his 3-32 and 51.

As for the league season, Jer skipper Khan, who is getting married on September 23, said: “It has been unbelievable as we haven’t lost a game since June 10 – 18 matches, 15 in the league and three in the cup.

"Unfortunately we made that administrative error, but still took it to the last game of the season.”