The County Championships Cadets Premier Division was held at Weavers TTC Welllingborough last weekend with Yorkshire going for their sixth straight title – although a much-changed team from last year were up against strong opposition, particularly Lancashire, Devonshire and Durham.

With each county playing three matches on Saturday and four on Sunday it was reigning champions Yorkshire who headed the table with three wins from three, on 6pts, followed closely by Lancashire and Devonshire who were on 5pts and 4pts respectively.

Things began to take shape on Sunday morning as Yorkshire were knocked off top spot by virtue of a 6-4 defeat by improving Devonshire and with Lancashire beating Kent 7-3 the “Roses” foes had swapped places with Lancashire now one point ahead.

The next round of matches saw Lancashire record a thumping 10-0 win over Glamorgan and with Devonshire beating Durham 8-2 and Yorkshire just scraping past Nottinghamshire 6-4, Lancashire had extended their lead on superior sets and Devonshire moved ahead of Yorkshire on their superior sets.

The next round of matches was always going to be crucial in the destination of the top two placing and so it proved as Lancashire comfortably beat Yorkshire 8-2 and with Devonshire overwhelming Nottinghamshire 9-1 the title was going to be won by Devonshire or Lancashire.

Such was their superiority of their sets advantage a win by Lancashire was going to give them the title which they duly did in their last match as they eased past Nottinghamshire 8-2, leaving Devonshire to pick up the runners-up spot with a hard-fought draw against Kent.

Outstanding boy and girl of the weekend were Thomas Rayner of Durham and Sandy Choong of Lancashire who both recorded perfect records of 14 straight wins and no losses.

This season we say goodbye to Sussex and Glamorgan who each completed the campaign on one match point as they drew their clash with each other but were well adrift of the other six counties.