Consolation at Crompton as Accy lose but hold top spot.
There are few ways of usefully sugar coating defeat in sport but the Lancashire Cricket League along with a few of its neighbours has found one which helped bring Accrington considerable succour after losing an unbeaten record which stretched back over the end of last season.
It’s arguable that no system should really allow a loss to be rewarded with 70 per cent of the points a winning side can have to settle for, and anomalies such as a team which is 49 out all out chasing 78 ending up with more to show than one scoring 300 in reply to 351 often raise a quizzical eyebrow but on Sunday at Crompton I think it’s fair to say that Jacob Clarke’s team thoroughly earned the six points to keep them top of the Second Division table.
It’s disappointing to lose a six-game league winning streak, four on the bounce to start the 2026 campaign, but as they say under these playing conditions if you are going to lose, try to pick up as many points as you can in the process and with Duckworth-Lewis providing increasingly stiff targets as the afternoon developed, six points was decent consolation.
Five more than we got in Eurovision anyhow.
Bowling the Glebe Street men out on their own midden in just over 41 overs (the game began life as 42 per side) is no mean achievement. Yes, Accrington had them 31 for four, 110 for five but I’ve seen deep-batting Crompton recover from similar peril to beat Church comfortably earlier in the season and they are a side you are never “through” until all 10 wickets are taken.
Again, however, the start Accrington got off to in pursuit wasn’t ideal , certainly not when Jurie Snyman fell for just five to leave it on 45 for three off 16 overs, some way behind already on DLS when rain came.
The calculation when play resumed with just eight further overs available meant the visitors needed an imposing 92 more to win.
In-form Emile was out in the first over after the restart but Jacob, steadfast at number three was still there and he and Sam Molloy gave the reply some impetus before Sam went for a quickfire 18. When Kian Farnworth was out an unlikely 55 were required from three overs.
That became 50 from two with three wickets remaining but Jacob and Asad Khan had a real go at it and took 38 from the 12 available deliveries, Asad run out going for a third off the final ball which would indeed have meant a fifth bonus batting point to go with the two bowling ones.
They don’t have Man of the Match awards in the league (yet) but if they had even though he ended up on the losing side captain Jacob would have been the outstanding candidate (apologies to any Rovers fans still traumatised by that phrase).
Three top order wickets, 43 not out at a run-a-ball and five catches – no caught and bowleds so he figured in eight of ten dismissals – was a remarkable personal day although from hearing how well he comes over on local radio representing Accrington I know he’d have much preferred a team win and a little less of the individual limelight.
His thoughtful studio interview on BBC Radio Lancashire’s Inside Edge programme last week (and the week before on the phone adroitly avoiding all reference from the presenter to his duck against Church) impressed hugely and despite Sunday’s minor setback, I’m sure the team is in good hands going forward.
I’m back on scoring duty this week at Bacup, one of my favourite away venues. Everyone has had their cold and windy day experiences atop Cowtoot Lane there but I seriously think it’s as lovely as anywhere on a fine afternoon. And there was always a bit of nibble for trundlers like myself on a cloudy day.
Hopefully there will be less cloud than last year when the fixture was washed out.. Even then I enjoyed my journey as I think there is no stretch of road more truly Lancastrian than that between Rawtenstall and Bacup. Hills, mills, pubs and clubs. I always particularly warm to the continued presence of the HQ of ‘Stacksteads Brass Band.”
On the way back I like to go that top way over Newchurch then past the Ski slope. If there’s a more pleasing way to experience East Lancashire in the sunshine I’ve never found it.
A dry day of course would reduce any need for the dreaded DLS. I fear the day I don’t have Mark Taylor at Accy or Cherry Tree tech guru Mickey Dolan handy to guide my calculations.
Last Saturday at Cherry Tree the home side posted a decent 145 for three off 30 overs against Baxenden, after one break and a (in my opinion, foolish) resumption in heavy drizzle.
Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent with captains and umpires requesting estimates of what a chase would look like (150-odd off 20, 185 off 30 as it happened) which never in any case got underway.
On and off and on and of ….one sheet to the wind at Preston New Road
An early finish in time for hospital visiting ebbed away with discussion about whether or not we had already played in rain or carried on/come back in worse still raging. Play finally abandoned at 5.42pm
My windscreen wipers were on from the moment I switched my ignition on in the car park to getting home which they would have been at any pont in the previous two hours; to my mind that tells you it wasn’t fit to play cricket in and hadn’t been for some time.
At least the delay meant I could have a chat with an old friend from Bash, Geoff Lund who was often a supportive soul during my days at the Accy Ob. I know Geoff has had a hard time after losing his wife last summer and he understood my current anguish over my dad. It’s tough seeing loved ones fade away.
It will do him no harm being among the Baxenden folk whose on-ad-off- field banter I always enjoy. There is some bewildering rubbish talked and shouted on cricket fields these days in the name of encouragement and cajolement but the Bash CC kids are genuinely funny and good-natured with it.
‘Baxenden – a good set of lads,’ as Father Ted might have said.
Cherry Tree had five over-40s in the team on Saturday, a stat which fascinated me watching what I often feel is a very young man’s game. It’s a sobering thought that I’m still old enough to be any of their dads.
Sunday saw a slightly more youthful average-age Cherry demolish NWCL Premiership strugglers Lostock in the Hamer Cup.
Lostock is that ground all of you will have been past on the M61 just before or after the Bolton Wanderers ground (on the opposite side) depending whether you are north or south bound which just seemed to materialise one day about 20 years ago.
At the risk of sounding like a Talking Heads song, you will have doubtless asked yourself “I wonder whose ground that is?” although now “I wonder where that cricket ground went?’ is becoming more common as trees grow tall and dense to block out the sight of passing motorway traffic.
Lostock used to be “British Aerospace” and had their new home funded by developers who swallowed up their old ground on the Middlebrook complex.
Now their problem – and they are not alone in this – is rival clubs swallowing up their players.
A quick check of an old scorebook on the morning of the game told me that they had only one player remaining from a very good team which won a thrilling game the last time I scored there at the end of the 2023 campaign.
Their newly-assembled team went down heavily to Cherry, whose batting looked far more solid over the weekend. Damp conditions led to a great deal of slapstick sliding about for fielders particularly early on.
Unluckiest man of the day was Cherry Tree wicket-keeper Mike Timmis, one of four wicket-keepers the side have employed this year, who wore a leg-side wide smack in the eye very late in proceedings with the game already as good as won.
His arrival at the Manchester Airport departure lounge the following day looking for all the world like a Benidorm stag do returnee with a beauty of a shiner would raise an eyebrow or too.
Church fans, who saw their favourites go down to Rishton at weekend, will sympathise over Lostock’s problems. Officials at one Bolton based side the week before told me that their own club had lost four or five over winter “One to a club in the same league for money, one to a different league, one because Lancashire wanted a youngster to play in the Northern Premier League.”
It must be frustrating for clubs who have nurtured kids through junior coaching and under-age teams then through seconds and thirds to see them more or less ordered to switch clubs/leagues.
Lancs dictating where players play rankles a bit too. Jack Simpson, Luis Reece, Jordan Clark, Keith Barker, Matt Critchley .. all names who slipped away from the County through the years who would improve the current squad.
However I’m keeping my trap shut about the respective merits of different leagues this week after all five Lancs League clubs went out of the LKO cup although I only really acknowledge two of them as trad LL outfits and one of them is from Yorkshire anyway, as are Lowerhouse’s conquerors Settle.
One of the things Lancs League pros love is the opportunity to be engaged as “sub pros” on Saturdays when there are now only Worsley Cup games remaining . Who can blame them?
And I’d never criticise any amateur player moving for money. If I’d been good enough to draw a few quid for doing something I enjoyed, the record shops of Preston and Manchester in the 1980s would have benefited considerably.
Higher temperatures are forecast this weekend. Let’s hope for sunnier days, firmer tracks and lots of entertainment with no injuries.
Quiz – last week’s answer Zahir Afzal.
This week – Only two fieldsmen have previously taken 5 catches for Accrington, excluding wicket-keepers. One, in 1999, includes three ‘caught and bowleds” the other in 2012, like Jacob’s doesn’t include any. Name the catchers.
