LYTHAM LOOK TO BOUNCE BACK

Date: 18th July 2014

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

... an era of big cricket ...

We live in an era of big cricket: big innings, big games, big months. The latter awaited Lytham’s cricketers 30 or more days ago, so it is not surprising that Church Road skipper Guy Roberts is a trifle glum at his side’s three defeats and one draw over the past four Saturdays, especially as the Fylde side came off second best to Ormskirk and New Brighton, their rivals in the quest for the ECB Premier League title.

The result of Lytham’s poor run is that while they still occupy third place in the ECB Premier League, they are a daunting 67 points behind the Brook Lane pacesetters, and Roberts therefore expects an immediate response, starting with Saturday’s home game against Fleetwood Hesketh.

“We have to remember that we were top of the league not so long ago,” he said. “What we need to do now is get over the last few weeks, put together a decent run of form and see where it gets us.”

Roberts points out that his young spinners Danny Edwards and Ben Saunders were handicapped during New Brighton’s run-chase last Saturday by the fact that they could not grip the wet ball, and this in a match where three seam bowlers, Luke Williams, Dan Robson and Richard Openshaw, were all unavailable.

Yet he also probably knows that such reasons only go so far. Lytham’s players need to get back on the horse and they need to do so quickly.

However, one person who will not be saddling up for another three Saturdays is Luke Williams, who incurred a four-match suspension for abusing an umpire in the game against Northern, while Saunders is apparently developing his skills on Ayia Napa this week

“Luke is a really big player for us and we missed him against New Brighton,” said Roberts. “We’ll miss him for the next three weeks as well but we felt we had no option given what had happened.”

Another big player for Lytham is opener Will Hale, whose century against New Brighton was his second of the league season and leaves him as the Premier League’s highest run-scorer with 557 to his name. Supporting Hale is Roberts himself, who seems to leave his best innings for the times when his side really needs them, while the consistently underestimated medium-pace of Antony Mulligan has gulled 21 unwary batsmen this summer so far.

There is, therefore, little doubt that Lytham have the players to make a challenge and come up on the rails in the next ten games. Whether less than a half a season will be sufficient and whether Ormskirk and New Brighton will prove to be a little too strong over the next ten furlongs this time around is something we shall discover in September.

“Ormskirk haven’t got to the top of the table by accident,” said Roberts. “They are a very powerful side and we were well beaten by them.”