Wright rues tardy start

CROMPTON were the highest-placed local club for the second successive season and it could have been even better had it not been for a slow start.

All-rounder Simon Wright assumed the captaincy following the retirement of Glenn Dawson during the last quarter of the campaign.

He said: “I think we have had a pretty good season when you bear in mind the start we had and the fact we struggled to field the same side each week.

“The pro (Mohammed Zaman Khan) and myself were hardly getting any runs in those early games, but since then we have been one of the better sides in the league.

“We finished strongly, winning most of the last 12 games or so which were not affected by the weather.

“We also reached the quarter-finals of the Twenty20, but the big disappointment was losing in the semi-final of the Wood Cup (to Rochdale) for the second year in a row. We should have won that game without a shadow of doubt.”

Crompton are hoping to re-sign Khan as professional and can look forward with optimism to 2010.

IT has been a case of “mission accomplished” for Oldham, whose participation in the CLL this season was in doubt days before the start of the season.

The late departure of several key players and intended professional Chinthaka Jayasinghe’s commitments to the Sri Lankan Cricket Board meant Oldham were short on numbers and quality.

But 11th-hour crisis talks ended with the club deciding to give it a go and skipper Chris McDonnell has steered his team through choppy waters.

He said: “At the start of the season we all knew it was going to be tough, but we came through it in the end.

“Some of the lads who have come up from the second team have done really well.

“Neil Inkpen, in particular, has been brilliant with his bowling and his attitude, while Craig Joy has come on with his wicketkeeping and batting after a shaky start.

“Our overseas amateur Nick Maree arrived thinking we would have a strong team, but he got his head around the situation and ended up with more than 600 runs.

“And Mel (Whittle) has been as reliable as ever as our pro and Paul Jewitt did a great job when he stood in earlier in the season.”

As for next summer, Oldham are looking to sign an English professional.

“We have cleared our debts, so hopefully we will have a bit of money to spend,” said McDonnell.




SATISFACTORY, but could have been even better. That’s the verdict from Royton, whose skipper Barry Woodward hung up his cricketing boots following Sunday’s game at home to Middleton.



“Considering everyone wrote us off before a ball was bowled, I think we have done well and proved a few people wrong,” said Woodward.

“Losing our overseas amateur Ryan Carters (who returned to Australia) with about 12 games to go was a blow because he was phenomenal behind the stumps and could get us a wicket out of nothing.

“We also missed his runs as he was just coming good when he had to leave.

“I think we might have won a few more games had he stayed and might have been able to finish a couple of places higher.”

Professional Luke Procter enjoyed a superb season with bat and ball and the same can be said about veteran performer John Punchard.

Andrew Punchard will take over the captaincy from Woodward, who played CLL cricket for 39 seasons — all but one of them at the Paddock.

ALL the talk at Werneth surrounded Roelof van der Merwe’s no-show.

The South African one-day star, signed by the Coppice outfit as their professional in 2009, never played a game.

First of all Merwe was snapped up by Bangalore Royal Challengers to play in the Indian Premier League. He was then chosen by his country for the ICC Twenty20 World Cup in June after which Werneth were told he would need eight weeks’ rest because of a shoulder injury.

Werneth employed Merwe’s Titans team-mate Pierre Joubert in the early part of the season before turning to Humayun Farhat.

And the Pakistani proved quite a hit with his cavalier approach to batting. He struck 99 off 45 balls in one Twenty20 knock against Crompton and posted a highest score of 133 in the league.