Hot favourites S&B must be wary of complacency
Liverpool Gin Liverpool Competition: First Division: Saturday: Southport & Birkdale (7pts), 137 for seven, drew with Orrell Red Triangle (7pts), 195 Sunday: Southport & Birkdale (25pts), 130 for no wicket, beat Wigan (1pt), 129, by ten wickets
IF Southport and Birkdale’s players were content with their work on Sunday evening after the toughest weekend of their season to date, it was easy to see why.
A hard-fought draw against Orrell Red Triangle at Winstanley Road followed by a ten-wicket hammering of Wigan at Bull Hey has left S&B 31 points clear of ORT and 76 ahead of third-placed Wigan.
It would now be perverse to think that Chris Firth’s side were not very hot favourites to be promoted back to the Premier League...yet again.
If, however, S&B’s players are in the slightest degree complacent ahead of Saturday’s derby against Fleetwood Hesketh at Trafalgar Road, they deserve any of the punishment that is coming their way.
Firth has stressed to his players that the manner of any possible triumph matters almost as much as the fact of it. The S&B skipper wants his side to be promoted because they are clearly ready for another crack at the top division, not because they have just about managed to stumble over the line.
On the weekend’s evidence, all is going fairly well. S&B were put under pressure in the field during ORT’s innings on Saturday as the home side’s middle and lower order utterly justified their team’s reputation as promotion candidates.
Early wickets for Andy Warhurst were not followed by successes for the spinners quite as rapidly as Firth’s men have managed recently and the fielding became a trifle ragged as Orrell posted 195 all out.
In pursuit of that target, Bradley Yates played well for his 36 before holing out at mid-on off the left-arm spin of Afaq Sartaj before Charlie Byrne and Harry May put on 53 for the fourth wicket. But May’s dismissal by the offspinner Siddiq Patel saw S&B’s innings lose its momentum and Firth was eventually content to share 14 points equally with his team’s closest rivals.
It may not have been a dominant performance after the fashion of the previous few weeks but it was certainly smart cricket.
The return of dominance, however, was only a single sleep away.
Sunday’s game was a triumph for Chris Cunningham, who collected his first fivewicket haul for the club, and also for Isaac Lea who returned to form with an unbeaten 59 as S&B romped to a ten-wicket victory on a dry pitch.
Cunningham’s wholehearted team ethic is an example to his younger colleagues while Lea is one of those players whom Firth hopes will be ready to play Premier League cricket in 2019.
On Sunday, Cunningham combined perfectly with Gary Keedy to take eight of Wigan’s ten wickets and Lea then helped Yates make their 130run target look very small indeed.
Yates has now scored 572 runs at an average of 114.4 while this was Lea’s first halfcentury of the season. But they are cricketers at different stages of their development, and the progress of S&B’s younger batsmen has been encouraging, indeed. All have played significant innings although their skipper will no doubt be reminding them, in his characteristically gentle fashion, that there can be no letting up now.
Southport and Birkdale’s second team played out a dull draw against Orrell Red Triangle at Trafalgar Road.
S&B made 245 for three in 42 overs with Dave Aston making an unbeaten 67 and Adam Burton adding 57. ORT replied with 211 for three off 51 overs.