Church Seconds completed the first leg of a possible league and cup double by winning the Junior Cup for the second time.

Joel Gaskill’s men beat Bacup by eight wickets at West End in front of a crowd of around 200 people.

The league leaders proved too strong for the Lanehead opponents who were in next to bottom spot going into the final.

Church won the toss and put Bacup in to bat on a rain swept afternoon that delayed the start of the match until 1.30pm.

The home side bowled tightly and restricted Bacup to 129 all out.

Mohammad Jamil struck the first blow for the home side when he removed opener Matt Collinge for seven with the score on 22.

Adam Highley followed four runs later when he was bowled by Mabs Hussain for 13.

Jamil struck again one run later to send back Scott Thompson without scoring as Bacup struggled to come to terms with the conditions.

Aaron Fielding (16) and Matt Thompson (10) took the score to 48 when Fielding fell to Steve Stokes.

Steve Berko then had Thompson snapped up by skipper Joel Gaskill behind the sticks and half of the side were back in the pavilion for 63.

Veteran skipper Terry Lord and John Syers got together to put on the best stand of the innings, adding 55 for the sixth wicket before Syers became the first of Ryan North’s (4-23) four victims for 20.

The pair had put on 50 in 10 overs after the first 20 had yielded just 47 runs.

North went on to clean up the tail with the help of Barry Shorrock as Bacup’s last five wickets fell for the addition of just 11 runs.

Lord was last man out after hitting eight boundaries in the innings top score of 44.

Church openers North and Phil Sykes scored freely with the first 10 overs bringing 50 runs before North fell to Lord for 16 with 57 on the board.

The veteran Sykes also fell to Lord after having hit six fours in an innings of 40 with the score at 78.

Bacup veteran Lord bowled a miserly spell in picking up 2-14 from his 10 over spell with five maidens.

But Manazer Mehmood steered Church to their second Junior Cup win with an unbeaten 51.

He hit nine boundaries and received sound support from Jamil (13 not out) in an unbroken third wicket stand of 53 to see Church home with 17.3 overs in hand.