There has been plenty for Carlisle Cricket Club to celebrate - with two players impressing on the county scene and another selected to compete at a prestigious competition.

Stanley Mcalindon, 15, has been called-up to represent the North of England at the annual Bunbury Cricket Festival next month.

Fellow talented young Carlisle first-team batsman Jonathan Davidson has also impressed of late, scoring back-to-back centuries for Cumbria’s Under-17s while playing against the Leicestershire and Rutland Cricket Board.

That came before Carlisle professional Michael Slack was handed the captaincy for Cumberland senior side’s match against Norfolk.

He scored 51 in the first innings of the Unicorns Championship Eastern Division match, before he also took four wickets. But he couldn’t prevent Cumberland from falling to a six-wicket loss at Furness, in the game which took place from Sunday to Tuesday.

Davidson and Slack will hope to continue that fine form in the coming weeks, while Mcalindon is now looking ahead to the Bunbury Festival at Felsted School, Essex, from August 4 to August 9.

He said: "We will play at the Bunbury Festival which will consist of 50-over and T20 games.

"Obviously, there will be a final at the end of it. I think the competition goes on for five days."

And Mcalindon, who is on the books at Durham, will be joined by some of his team-mates in the side.

"There are three Durham lads, but the rest are from Lancashire and Yorkshire," he explained.

"So, quite a lot of the squad will be players from Lancashire and Yorkshire, really."

The fast bowler is excited to test himself.

He admitted: "I’m looking forward to playing against the best. That’s what I want to do, test myself by playing against the best of the best.

"Hopefully, I can up my own standards against them."

On what his reaction had been like upon learning he had been selected, Mcalindon said: “Lee Conway, the head coach, congratulated me in person.

"We had just played a game and he told me after that I had been selected.

"So, I was speechless, really, just very happy."

Over the Christmas period, Mcalindon made his first impression with Durham as he helped the side to success in The United Arab Emirates.

"It all happened so fast," he said. "It started off with them getting me to come to the UAE.

"We won that, then I came back and got a contract. Ever since, I haven’t really had time to look back at it, but it’s been pretty mad."

Meanwhile, Davidson’s 134 and 100 not out for Cumbria’s Under-17s mean he is third on the all-time list of the county’s youth-team run-scorers.

He is 69 runs behind leading run-scorer Alex Atkinson, with Cockermouth’s Cumberland duo Matthew Sempill and Alex Grainger, and professional players Liam Trevaskis and Liam Livingstone also in the top 10.