Sutcliffe bridging the game’s changing eras
FEW people are better qualified to take a broad overview of the current state of the Love Lane Liverpool Competition than Ian Sutcliffe.
A member of the last title-winning Southport and Birkdale side in 1996, Sutcliffe was later captain of a Hightown team which regularly punched far above its weight in the early years of this century and having returned to Trafalgar Road three years ago, he skippered the third XI to the Sunday Premiership in September.
Nor are Sutcliffe’s playing days anything like over. In the coming season he is looking to establish himself in Lancashire’s Over 50s side and will be combining that quest with his responsibilities as S&B’s chair of selectors and manager of the club’s Under 18 side.
It has already been a remarkable career and one that has enabled Sutcliffe to observe the gradual changes taking place in league cricket over the past quarter of a century.
“The standard of domestic players in the top level of club cricket has gone up over the last 15 years but that’s partly because a lot more of those cricketers are being paid rather than clubs hiring one overseas professional,” he said.
“It’s the be-all and endall to be playing Premier League cricket now and that’s understandable partly because the gulf between the top two divisions is just vast. In turn, that puts a lot more pressure on players and the whole game is much less social than it was.”
Sutcliffe has noticed other changes, too. He is now a member of the ad hoc sub-committee responsible for identifying any suitable overseas cricketers who might play for S&B in 2024 and that job has changed markedly since the era when Hightown, assisted by the diligent researches of Nathan Heathcliffe-Core, were able to engage high-quality professionals at relatively low cost.
“The standard of overseas professional is not as high partly because the international cricketers who used to come over for a season in the league are now better paid and can make even more money in franchise cricket,” said Sutcliffe.
“Superstars like Curtly Ambrose or Abey Kuruvilla don’t play club cricket in England any more.
“We now have player agents and there are a whole raft of regulations from the Competition, the ECB and the Home Office with which we have to comply. Everyone has now wised up to the fact that there is a market for overseas cricketers and it’s consequently much more difficult to pick up a bargain in the way that Hightown regularly used to do.”