Isaac relishes supporting role for S&B
IT will soon be time for much of the talking to stop.
After a winter that has been packed with socially distanced or virtual meetings to prepare for the 2021 season Southport and Birkdale’s cricketers should finally take to the field on Saturday when an intra-club friendly will be played at Trafalgar Road.
Matches against Bradshaw and Norden will follow before the Love Lane Liverpool Competition programme gets under way on April 24.
By that time Chris Cunningham will have a clearer idea of his strongest team but he will also have had the chance to make it plain what he expects from S&B’s players in matters like attendance at nets, timekeeping and their general approach to the game.
Backing him up will be Isaac Lea, a 20-year-old grizzled veteran who played the first of his 61 matches in the Liverpool Competition nearly six seasons ago and whose appointment as Cunningham’s vice-captain was made in the knowledge that he will miss some early league games for the irritating reason that his Economics tutors at Bristol University would prefer him to take the second-year examinations upon which his final degree will partially depend.
But Lea’s commitment to S&B has been evident since he took to the field at Leigh in June 2015 and his promotion to officialdom will only deepen it.
He will play in the opening game at Wallasey and should Cunningham stab himself in the tea interval again – the skipper has form in this respect – Lea will take charge on the field.
While that is a prospect which does not daunt him, he knows that his main task is to back up the new skipper and ensure that simple standards are upheld while offering whatever advice he can at the right time.
“It was a great honour to be made vice-captain but I see my role principally as one of supporting Chris,” he said.
“He’s the right man for the job, he’s played in successful teams and he knows what he’s doing.
“There will be times when I offer my input as necessary and on the field I’ll hope to help out as much as I can.
“I like analysing the game and trying to work out the best course of action under pressure. I want to be involved as much as possible.”
For a few weeks, though, Lea’s participation will be necessarily limited.
All the same, in a season when at least half a dozen new players will be settling in at Trafalgar Road he will be making himself available to younger cricketers as they discover the rich rigours of the Liverpool Competition.
“My overriding aim is to be a positive influence on the side and it will be important for me to back Chris up in whatever stipulations he makes as to how we’re going to do things,” he said.
“In a way I can set the standard for the younger generation of players like Jack Carney, Basil Sultan and Jack Stanley. It’s not so long ago that I was in their position in the first team.”