South Manchester edged past Salford to retain the NJCL T20 title in a close fought encounter.

Salford won the toss and elected to bat in damp conditions but tight bowling from brothers Akiva and Huddy Lieberman kept the scoring down. In fact Salford only managed 11 runs off the first five overs as the bowlers were on top.

Wickets started to fall at regular intervals as skipper Steven Glicher rotated his bowlers with great regularity.

Only Jonny Wineberg managed to keep the South bowlers at bay and keep Salford in the game. When he was last out scoring 28, the Salford total of 88 did not seem anywhere near enough.

The wickets were shared around the South bowlers with Huddy Lieberman (2-9), Akiva Lieberman (1-12) and father Jonny (2-17). Dovid Black chipped in with two as did David Shonfield.

South started steadily with Akiva Lieberman and Simon Jeffries keeping Wineberg and Daniel Paul at bay. However the low sun made batting extremely difficult at one end as the batsmen could only see the ball as it reached them.

Wickets started to fall at regular intervals and none of the South batsmen could make a meaningful impact.

Everyone chipped in but no-one could stay there and it was left to Andrew Feldman to keep the innings going with a few lusty blows at the death, to see South home with just seven balls to spare as South won by 2 wickets.

Umpire David Glick named Jonny Wineberg Man of the Match but he will be ruing the amount of extras his side gave away which effectively cost them the game.