Lancashire League Handbook 2015

13 Our Sponsorship relationship with Heineken, under the Fosters banner as League & Worsley Cup sponsors entered the last of our 3 year agreement. Moorhouses Brewery continued their 20/20 Sponsorship and we are most grateful for both partnerships. Seven Clubs introduced new professionals into the League namely Hasseb Azam at Bacup, Usman Tariq at Church, Ali Azmat at Colne, Matthew Kleinveldt at East Lancs, Daryn Smit at Ramsbottom, Matt Hullett at Rishton and Michael Neser at Todmorden. Burnley and Lowerhouse also had new professionals in Chris Holt and Cobus Piennar, both had been substitutes within the League previously. Brett Pelser, Werner Coetsee and Ryan Canning returned to Rawtenstall, Enfield and Nelson and Ockert Erasmus moved from East Lancashire to Accrington. At the time of writing, half of the 2014 professionals have been re-signed for 2015, the remainder will have new names with early indications showing that we will have ten South Africans and 3 Pakistanis. The adoption of the overseas amateur option proposed as a rule change may bring a change to the professional/overseas player standard. The Ron Singleton Colne Trophy betweenAccrington and Burnley started the season off. Accrington batted first and at 23 for 3 looked to be in trouble but a stand of 67 between new professional Ockert Erasmus and captain Stuart Crabtree steadied the ship and when the pro was out the rest of the batting supported the captain who went on to make 93 in a total of 237 for 9.The Burnley innings never really got going and captain Bharat Tripathi top scored with 41 as Burnley fell 86 short as the innings closed at 151 for 9 meaning that Accrington retained the trophy. The season started the next day and there were wins for Accrington, Church, Colne, East Lancs, Enfield Haslingden and Rawtenstall. Ali Azmat marked his debut with a remarkable 168 and Levi Wolfenden started with a century at Lowerhouse as the visitors chased 253 towin. By the end of May six wins out of seven had given Rawtenstall a lead of 8 points from Church with Ramsbottom, Lowerhouse and Haslingden making up the top 5. However 5 defeats in June pushed Rawtenstall down to 8th by the end of the month and Lowerhouse with 6 straight wins took pole position by 3 points from Ramsbottom. Church Enfield andHaslingden followed. Five further wins in July maintained top place and Ramsbottom were now 12 points behindwith Enfield in third place a further 20 behind. Six more wins followed inAugust and the title was secured with a hard fought victory at Todmorden with 3 balls left and 9 wickets down but that's what Champions do, winwhen the chips are down. FOSTERS LANCASHIRE CRICKET LEAGUE