A 12-YEAR-OLD boy has become the youngest player ever to play for Chester Boughton Hall’s first team.

Harry Killoran was given an 11th-hour call-up for Saturday’s Premier Division clash with Neston after opener Steve Ogilby pulled out to bring his wife home from hospital after she had given birth.

Harry, who lives in one of the houses overlooking Hall’s Filkins Lane ground, certainly took his chance to shine as he shared a 30-run last-wicket partnership with Alex Kegg – the team’s oldest player – on his way to six not out.

Now the Bishops’ High School student is being tipped for a bright future by Hall captain Jim Gillson.

“A superb debut from a very talented young man,” said Gillson. “Harry and his brother Joe are both talented lads – cricket-mad and football-mad.

“We’ve known about Harry as a junior player for some time, but this was an excellent performance by him.”

Harry joined the club when he was in primary school and his development has been overseen by his father Dave, who is Hall’s junior chairman.

Dave, whose family live on Boughton Hall Avenue, said: “He thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He has been playing senior cricket for about two years and has been part of Cheshire’s squad for four, but this was a real milestone for him.”

The player whose record Harry broke by a matter of days was long-serving batsman Eddie Roberts, who was part of the Hall team that went down by three wickets to table-topping Neston on Saturday.

The visitors came into the contest on the back of a two-match losing run, but they stopped the rot by battling to 184-7 in reply to 183.

Maroof Khan scored 37 and took 3-48 in his last league game for Hall before he moves to Hong Kong on business.

Gillson said: “I’ve known Maroof from our time at Christleton together and he’s been excellent here. He’s a real club man, an influential guy that all the juniors really look up to.”

OULTON PARK moved up to second and within 41 points of Neston with a 224-run home romp over Bramhall.

The defending champions, who are now very much back in the groove, ripped through their rock-bottom visitors for 110 (Robin Taylor 3-23, Chris Jones 3-29, Guy Emmett 2-25, Nathan Dumelow 2-26) after flaying a massive 334-4dec.

The in-form Ric Moore (138) and Jonathan Kettle (96) laid the foundations with a stunning 227-run opening stand before Louis Bentley (48) got in on the act.