From the Dressing Room

Today we entertain Burnley, and we extend a warm welcome to all their player’s, officials and supporters. The season has certainly started on a high note for us, as the lads pulled off another fine away win at Bacup last Saturday on what can only be described as an interesting wicket. Having won the toss and electing to bat we made heavy weather of the opening overs as Bacup Pro Chris Harris proved to be almost unplayable with only Paul Carroll showing any early resistance with a battling 23. With wickets falling Graham Lloyd (12) and Stuart Crabtree (19) managed to get into double figures and Simon Hanson hit 35 before a last wicket stand of 20 from the skipper and Damian saw us finish on 133. In the second innnings Bacup had the same difficult start as we had had and were behind the run rate throughout, finally finishing on 99 all out. This was due in no small measure to another fine spell of bowling from the skipper, who earned his second successive collection of the season as he returned figures of 6-35 with Toby also picking up 3-20, some fine fielding saw us home to a twelve point haul.

So two games gone and twelve points gained we could not have asked for a better start, but it is still early days and we are not getting carried away. On Sunday on a very wet day we again won the toss and batted first in a game reduced to 35 overs, but were very quickly reduced to 11-4 as the Haslingden bowlers made the most of the poor conditions and at that score the rains came and we lost a further five overs. When the players returned Graham Lloyd and Matt Wilson put up some dogged resistance for while but at 27-4 the rains returned and that was the end of the days cricket.

A big thank you must go to all the players and officials who did a terrific job in getting the ground fit for play last Sunday, at twelve o’clock it looked like there was no chance of any cricket but some hard work meant we did manage to start the game. So to this weekend, let’s hope that we were able to continue our winning run at East Lancs yesterday, it would be great to have three away wins to our name and still be at the top of the table.

Today we welcome back to Thorneyholme Road one of the great characters of English cricket David Lloyd, who is making a return to the team at the tender age of 61. David has been extremely helpful to the club in many ways during our recent financial difficulties and the club can only benefit from the high profile that his inclusion in today’s team should bring. He had a net down here on Tuesday and all reports are that he is still more than capable of doing a job in the team, although he did own up to being a little stiff later on that evening. Anyone who watches cricket on Sky TV will know that he remains as passionate about our great game as ever and it is an absolute pleasure to welcome him into the dressing room today. But whilst we may have a “celebrity” in our midst we must not lose sight of the fact that we have a game of cricket to win and we will be working hard to make sure that the lads continue to do all the things that have given us such a good start to the season. Let’s hope the weather is kinder to us today and that we can carry on our winning ways. Enjoy the game.
Ian Wilson