NatWest are to give away over 200 tickets to the Australia v Pakistan One-Day International match on Saturday (16 June) to North East youngsters unlucky to be hit by the foot and mouth outbreak.

NatWest worked alongside Durham CCC to compensate the young cricketers in the Alnwick and District, Darlington and District and Langbaurgh Leagues which have all been badly hit by the epidemic.

Club names were put into a hat and 12 lucky clubs were picked to attend the sixth game of the NatWest Series. Hutton Rudby, Great Broughton and Kirby, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Ingleby Grennhow, Trimdon Colliery, Maltby, King James, Kildale, East Coundon, Eglingham, Rockcliffe and Belford emerged victorious.

Eighteen children and two adults from each club will be able to savour a top cricket day out at their local county ground, starting with a trip to the NatWest Interactive Zone which will open early for them at 9.30am.

The clubs not lucky enough to have won the tickets will still benefit, however, as invitations have been extended to them to give demonstrations at future games at the Riverside.

"We are delighted to offer NatWest Series tickets to these young cricketers that have been badly hit by the foot and mouth disease and hope it goes a little way to compensating them for their disrupted season," commented Abi Searle, Sponsorship Manager, NatWest.

Durham Cricket Development Officer Nick Brown says: "It has been a very difficult summer for many cricket clubs due to the foot and mouth outbreak.

"Both Durham County Cricket Club and the Durham Cricket Board thought this would be a good way to compensate the youngsters and NatWest kindly donated the tickets."

NatWest has been a major sponsor of cricket since 1981 when the bank began 20 years of sponsorship of the NatWest Trophy. In 2000, following a successful sponsorship of the 1999 Cricket World Cup, NatWest become the first title sponsor of the new international, one-day triangular competition, the NatWest Series.

NatWest, now part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, is one of the biggest banks in the UK. NatWest provides a whole range of financial services to over seven million personal and business customers. NatWest has over 1,640 branches and operates nearly 3,800 cash machines.

© NatWest