Diary of the Season – 2000

January – Indoor nets start – is it only 3 months since the last time we played? Every muscle aches after the first attempt to bowl line and length!

April arrives and we look forward to the season – new additions to the squad include ex pro Mike Ward (a class opening bat) and David ‘Onion’ O’Neill (an ex Wanderer who has been playing at Whalley). Somehow, we feel that this could be our season after finishing runners up for the last 2 seasons – after all, our nearest rivals for the previous season had lost key players – John Hughes (always bowls us out) had left Cherry Tree, Steven Gee (Padiham) had retired and Great Harwood’s professional had given last minute backword.

Game 1 vs. Whalley – April 22^nd
Onion was dreading this game but needn’t have worried! We got off to a flyer when Shahid (made it for the first game!) creamed the first ball to cover and was brilliantly caught off the gentle medium pace of Knowles – 0-1!! A small recovery before the season’s script was written – it rained!!
Match drawn and drunk by 7pm. (Only game to show a result – Cherry Tree vs. Settle). RW 2 points.

29^th April – Padiham (a)
Lost another toss against the champions for past 2 years – made a respectable 180-9 then it rained!!
Play restarted a bit late and the home pro, Ajay Sharma followed up ‘Trip’s’ rapid 50 with an unbeaten 70 to secure a run rate win – RW 0 points!

6^th and 7^th May
Read and Cherry Tree were on paper 2 of the sides to challenge for the title and were put to the sword over our first successful weekend, thanks mainly to the pro who hit his first ton against Read and followed it up with an unbeaten 70 against a weakened Cherry Tree. – RW 12 points.

13^th May – Time to defend the cup.
Skipper David took the day off for a wedding as we travelled to Read, leaving VC ‘Chip’ holding the fort. A great result as the toss was lost again! Confidence soared as Read struggled to 50-2 after 24 overs – how wrong can you be! Sleepy played out of his skin and Terry Little smashed us out of sight in the last 24 overs as they posted a mammoth 250 off 48 overs! Bye-bye cup we are thinking! But wait – over number 1 and Shahid decides to play himself in way taking 20 of Longden’s first over and him and Mike Ward put on 80 in 10! – Game on!
Enter Peter Sleep to end the dream by taking Wardy (to his first dubious LB of the season) and crucially Shahid for a scintillating 70. All is not quite lost as Briggy and David Gardner-Chan take us to within striking distance but both lose their wickets to bad shots – a flurry at the end from Baz Spencer isn’t quite enough and our defence of the cup is over!!
Never mind, we can concentrate on the league!

20^th May – Blackburn N (a)
BN 140-6 off 45 overs – RAIN 

27^th May vs. Barnoldswick (a)
A game for the unsung heroes of the season – Shahid departed earlier than we are used to for 50ish against the usual difficult bowling of Barlick – we were struggling to reach a respectable 140 when David Overy took charge with a crucial 30-odd to take us up to a defendable 170. The home team never even tried to get the runs and finished at 100-6 – why bother!!

28^th May vs. Clitheroe (h)
Ex Wanderer Dexter Fitton was pro for the Chatburn Roaders and they fancied their chances of winning the title this year – Think again!!!
Shahid took charge on a very slow track and scored a brilliant 87 with top support from Wardy who battled through for an unbeaten 49 as we reached 160 off the overs. We looked in trouble for a while as they got to 50-0, but it took 22 overs and wickets tumbled after that as we bowled them out for just over 100.

3^rd June vs. Baxenden (a)
Baxenden 30-4 off 18 overs – RAIN

4^th June vs. Great Harwood (a)
The Harwood cricket field resembled a boating lake when we arrived but effort was made and we started late on half the pitch (after planting rice!).
Lost the toss (again) and managed a respectable 160ish (Briggs first 50 of the season). More rain fell and the rice grew as Paul Houldsworth took us to task scoring a fine, unbeaten 50 to steer Harwood home as the fielders were dragged out of the mud!

10^th, 17^th, 24^th June & 1^st July – Edenfield, Settle, Earby & Ossie
4 relatively comfortable wins followed the Great Harwood defeat as we moved towards the top of the table – Gardner-Chan once again particularly enjoying his batting at Ossie with a quickfire 30 to win us a tricky game.

8^th July vs. Whalley (a)
Whalley 101 all out – RW 70-1 (20 overs) – RAIN STOPPED PLAY – it’s a great season for ducks (the flying variety!). This game saw the farcical situation where the umpire had to remove his specs, place them above his head and study the lens to check whether it was raining! No further play was possible after 1 speck of rain marred his vision after 15 seconds!! (Cherry Tree, Padiham and Great Harwood all got wins!)

15^th July – Padiham (h)
Won the toss!! Padiham struggled to 140-8 on a tricky wicket and took the initiative when part time bowler Andy McNicholas bowled Shahid before he had done too much damage. David Howard scored a superb unbeaten 50 to steer us home and close the gap the weather had opened up!

22^nd & 23^rd July – Read & Cherry Tree (a)
The toughest possible weekend of the season and the skipper goes to watch Oasis in London! ‘Chip’ in charge again! Onion and Shahid bowl out of their skins to bowl Read out for just over 100 and Shahid showers without batting as the runs are comfortably got. Part 1 success!
Cherry Tree opt to bat on a tricky one and are looking sick as Onion and Shahid rip out the early batsmen to leave them at 12-5. Lee Kennedy and Nigel Robbins spark a superb fight back and Tree recover to 182-8. Shahid scores a rapid 30 before holing out off Robbins and the home team players and spectators can hardly contain their excitement at the prospect of winning yet another championship. – Think again!!
Richard Palmer then proceeds to play one of the best innings of his first team career to take us within striking distance of the total before losing his wicket. Once again the locals celebrate! Think again!!
Onion enters the fray. Not known for his batting prowess, he proceeds to smite Naeem (the top bowling pro in the league) for 2 magnificent boundaries and finishes with 18 not out to give us an unlikely win and move us to within 3 points of the top spot – what a weekend!!

August
Victories against Blackburn Northern (Shahid 100*), Barnoldswick, and Clitheroe again! (Shahid 100*) whilst Cherry Tree were losing, took us to yet another controversial rain affected game with Baxenden when we had restricted Bash to 125-8 off 45 overs and were 80-4 off 22 when it started to drizzle lightly. Unbelievably, the umpires took off the bails and legged it into the pavilion for a fag before you could say ‘it’s stopped’ – which it had!!
Kindly they went back out for an over before one of the umps decided it was raining again and legged it off the pitch again to finish the fag! Once again, our game was the only one not to have a result as Harwood and Cherry Tree both took 7 points!
A seven pointer at Edenfield restored our faith in human nature as their last batsman ‘walked’ despite not being given out by the umpire – that’s a rarity!
We are now 10 points clear at the top with 4 to play.

The darkest day of the season – 26^th August vs. Settle (a)
The day began with the sad news that one of our most ardent supporters, Tom Davies, died the previous day.  Tom was the father of first teamer Martin and very rarely missed the opportunity to watch him play.  There was a cloud hanging over the day from the very start.
To say Settle are a poor side would not be entirely accurate as the have some useful performers, but they are used to having big scores against them and also have been bowled out for very low scores on more than one occasion. We therefore believed that our difficulty that weekend would be beating Great Harwood, not bottom of the table Settle. Think again!!
On a very damp wicket (again) we were asked to bat first and sank into depression when Shahid hammered a full pitch off Jolleys straight down the throat of deep square leg, setting the scene for the most abject batting display of the season with the exception of Wardy who managed his usual 40-odd! 82 all out against the bottom of the league!
At 37-1 with the Settle pro, Bhave (1000 runs each season) at the wicket our chances looked slim. Even when Bhave was out, the total didn’t look enough as they progressed to 73-4. Then wickets started to fall and we looked favourites with the score on 77-9 and 2 kids at the wicket. Unfortunately for us, the 2 kids batted well enough to see them home and claim an unlikely 7 points (as did Great Harwood).

The big game vs. Great Harwood 27^th August
By now the title race was 2 horse – Great Harwood and us with us 3 points clear Rain once again delayed the start and a 37 over game started at 2pm. We were asked to bat and Shahid did! He hit a magnificent 114 as we posted 206-7 in only 35 overs. Harwood were never in with a shout and we bowled them out for 93 to take the lead back to 10 points. One win will do!

The title clincher vs. Earby - 2^nd September
Guess what – it had rained at Earby! After cutting a new wicket, we started late and played a 40 over game. Shahid escaped an early scare and score a sedate (by his standards) 78. Briggy helped us out at the end with a useful 37* as we posted 172-5. We had to remove danger-man Jon Harvey to win and Shahid managed to do that in his first over! One or two small hiccups followed but the victory was achieved as Earby were bowled out in the final over 25 runs short of their target. Celebrations went on late into the night as we had clinched our first championship for 37 years!

At the time of writing, the seconds are 5 points clear with one to play (v second placed Cherry Tree), the thirds have clinched the title, the under 18’s have jointly won the league and the under 17’s won their cup competition despite having 4 players in the representative side!

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