Fledgling trio offer a glimpse of bright future
FOR a young club cricketer on Merseyside there is nothing to compare with making your first-team league debut.
Knockouts are pleasant enough in their way but it is different on Saturday, especially when Premier League cricket offers you the chance to test yourself against the best players the Love Lane Liverpool Competition can offer in the timed format that offers the toughest test.
So among the other good things that this fledgling season has already granted to Southport and Birkdale we may now number the debuts given to Bellis Shukla and Henry Eccles, with the latter getting his maiden taste of the first-team atmosphere in the ninewicket thrashing of Rainhill.
Of course, it helps if you also do something useful, so Eccles will certainly have been pleased in the fourth over of the game when his clean pick-up and fast throw from short fine-leg gave his side their first wicket of the game.
But the match against Rainhill was also significant for another young cricketer, Tom Crew, who has made maybe half a dozen more appearances than Eccles and whose bowling on Saturday revealed the cutting edge everybody knew it has always possessed.
By bowling Mike Rotherham for one and then trapping Khalid Usman lbw for four, the rock-steady Crew offered a portent of the service he
RAINHILL Rotherham b Crew Clarke run out (Eccles Higham b Firth Shabhan Raheem lbw Firth Khalid Usman lbw Crew McKeown c Cunningham b Wincer Ford b Firth Williamson not out Harrison c Snellgrove b Firth Lowrie lbw Firth O’Toole c Crew b Wincer Extras TOTAL FoW: 1-6 2-11 3-13 4-20 5-54 6-54 7-62 7-62 8-85 9-87 10-88
Firth 16-7-38-5 Crew 6-0-20-2 Wincer 9 3-1-30-2 S&B Fielding not out Stanley c Clarke b Usman Juyal not out Extras TOTAL (for one wicket) FoW: 1-1 Usman 8-2-39-1 Harrison 3-1-11-0 O’Toole 4-0-34-0
Lowrie 0 5-0-2-0 1 5 25 1 4 16 0 20 9 0 1 6 88 56 0 29 4 89
might render S&B in future years. In addition, Eccles, Crew and Shukla are gradually understanding that they belong at this level. It is priceless knowledge.
True, it is almost always tougher than Saturday’s one-sided match but it it a level at which they do not freeze. And suddenly the summer stretches deliciously before them.
Chris Firth, of course, has known he could cope in the Competition for almost two decades and on Saturday he collected his second five-wicket haul in three matches as Rainhill collapsed to 88 all out.
Firth bowled unchanged from the Grosvenor Road End, taking the third wicket to fall and then working his way through middle order of a team whose club fielded rather stronger elevens not so long ago.
That latter point was of no concern to Firth until the game was done. Nor did it bother Bobby Wincer, who supported his spin-bowling team mate by taking two wickets and leaving Chris Cunningham’s batsmen with what seemed the easiest of run-chases.
Appearances were not deceptive. S&B lost Jack Stanley early in the piece, caught at short leg off Khalid Usman when attempting a sweep, but the next 13 overs or so saw JJ Fielding and Aryan Juyal guide their team to their second successive victory with Fielding taking the opportunity to dismantle the Rainhill attack en route to his third successive fifty.
Juyal probably knows there are far tougher tests on the way and was content to watch his partner have some fun. The game ended at 3.16pm and by late afternoon Cunningham and his players were chatting and joking as they sat round a table they had placed on the outfield.
It was an image of relaxed contentment and there seems little reason to think the next five months or so will fundamentally alter it.
But S&B’s hopes of winning matches in both league and cup last weekend were dashed when Sunday’s ECB National Knockout game against Leyland was abandoned without a ball bowled.
However, on Saturday the second team had completed a 117-run victory over Newton-le-Willows that took them to the top of their Premier
League. Batting first, Alex Halsall’s side made 201 for five declared, with Sam Holliday making 48, Charlie Carney 34 and extras 39.
The home side were well placed in pursuit of that target but the collapsed from 50 for one to 84 all out, with Matthew Hennessy taking five for 16 and Halsall four for 17.