Skippers of our Lancashire League teams look back on their teams' respective seasons ...
RISHTON - View of the season with captain Craig Smith:
Player of the Season: It is very difficult to pick a player of the season – everyone who played a substantial amount of games underachieved
Unsung hero: This is Mo Patel, his first season having joined from East Lancs, he made two or three significant contributions with the bat and one or two with the ball, but my abiding memory of the season would be watching him galloping around the longest boundary at every ground in the league!
Memorable performances: There have been two memorable performances – the best all-round performance would be slaughtering Haslingden at Rishton, with a quite outstanding 152 from our professional Andrea Agathagelou. The other one was our bowling and fielding performance against Colne to bowl them out for 106 and win by six runs.
Worst performances: There have been quite a few ‘worst’ performances and it would be difficult to pick one, but I guess the worst would be losing to Todmorden last week and the game being over by 4.30pm.
Improvements for next year: It should not be too difficult to make improvements next season, but the biggest single improvement would be to have all our players available for most of the season. Three of our best players only played 23 games between them. It has not been a particularly memorable season and I am quite relieved that it is now over.
ENFIELD - View of professional, captain and wicket keeper Adam Bracewell:
Player of the season: Liam Jackson. Bowled brilliantly all season, and though he got 50-odd wickets he could so easily have had a hatful more. Also score 500 with the bat.
Unsung hero. Asif Fazal. Didn’t come into the side until just short of mid-season, but was an instant success getting a few big scores, and claimed his spot opening the batting.
Best performance: Beating Accrington at Dill Hall Lane by a record margin – 193 runs.
Worst performance: There was a few bad ones to be honest, but the one that stands out the most is probably the recent game against Bacup when we needed just 15 runs with five wickets left and managed to get bowled out three runs short.
Improvements for next year: Hopefully sign a good professional who can help bring through the youngsters that we have at the club. At times this year we showed glimpses of being a good side, and with a first class cricketer added to our team, and maybe one or two more new faces, we should be competitive.
CHURCH - View of captain Andy Bentley
Player of the season: Ammer Mirza: to produce more than 900 runs in his first Lancashire League season and break the club record in the process is a magnificent effort, especially at the tender age of 19. The challenge for him is to reproduce the same form in back-to-back seasons.
Unsung Hero: Ryan North: A player with a wonderful attitude and great commitment to the club despite being in and out of the team. His bowling was a crucial factor in reaching the Twenty20 final and he also played an important role in the second XI league and cup double.
Best Team Performance: There are a couple that stand out. Beating Colne away by 10 wickets – Ammer Mirza and Levi Wolfenden put on an unbroken opening stand of 169. A great effort from a pair with a combined age of only 36 against one of the most feared bowling professionals in Anwar Ali. Also the victory over Burnley at home where we dismissed them for only 30 to win by 154 runs.
Worst Team Performance: Defeat away to Enfield. We had Enfield 52-6 early in the day and despite this strong position they managed to post 161-9 which proved to be a winning score. We never threatened reaching our target, being bowled out for a disappointing 102.
Improvements for next year: There have been a lot of positives to take from this season, we have continued to show progression in the league by finishing in our highest position in six years and we also reached our first cup final since 2002. We have a young squad and will be looking for players to go away and asses their own performance and deliver a similar level of progression next season.
