Skelmersdale face crunch time in relegation battle

SKELMERSDALE Cricket Club’s fight to avoid relegation was dented further on Saturday as they suffered yet another defeat.

Martyn Brierley’s side are still yet to find a regular first-team bowler and it is proving very costly as they are now second bottom in the Liverpool & District Cricket Competition’s First Division table.

Newton-le-Willows took advantage of Skelmersdale’s struggles on Saturday too, notching up 172-3 after bowling the hosts all out for 168.

Brierley admitted it was frustrating to suffer defeat yet again and he thinks it is still down to Skem’s lack of bowling options.

“We were struggling again so it was another frustrating match,” said the captain.

“We had a few players missing this week as well as Fayaz Ughradar, who has missed the last few games, so hopefully they will be back soon.

“As Fayaz is still injured, we have had to play second-team players in the side and that isn’t helping our situation. We were probably about 30 runs short of what we needed to be in the game but we couldn’t get them.

“We don’t have enough wicket-taking bowlers in the team so we struggled to attack them but I don’t think their batsmen were much stronger than ours.

“We got some early wickets and started off well but they then started take their time at the crease and built up a score.

“If we’d had another decent bowler, I think we would have won that game.

“It’s frustrating for us at the moment.”

Skelmersdale’s next two games are against Birkenhead Park and Fleetwood Hesketh, who both are struggling near the bottom of the table too.

Brierley admitted it is a crucial time for Skem and they need to win both games in order to stand a chance of avoiding relegation.

“The next two games are important for us to stay up,” said Brierley.

“Hopefully we can pick up some wins against those teams. We’ll still have a few key players missing but we will have a few coming back too which is good news.

“We should be a stronger team but Fayaz’s absence is still big for us.

“We drew with Birkenhead last time so if we can pull a win out of the bag on Saturday then hopefully we can go into the game against Fleetwood Hesketh with confidence.

“It’s really important we get points from these games as they are the teams also struggling and in and around us near the bottom of the table.”