Lancashire League Handbook 2017

14 FOSTERS LANCASHIRE CRICKET LEAGUE Our Sponsorship relationships with Heineken, under the Fosters banner as League & Worsley Cup sponsors and Moorhouses Brewery’s 20/20 Sponsorship continued and we are most grateful for both partnerships. Ockert Erasmus at Accrington, Haseeb Azam at Bacup, Chris Holt at Burnley, Daryn Smit at Ramsbottom, were the returning professionals from 2015. This left Church, Colne, East Lancs, Enfield, Haslingden, Nelson, Rishton and Todmorden with new professionals Zain Abbas, Yaseen Vallie, Andries Gous, Babar Neem, Dieter Klein, Ryan Bailey, Shaun von Berg and Ashton Turner. Enfield had a late setback and Diego Rosier was signed and Rawtenstall made history signing Nick Maolo as the first overseas amateur, taking advantage of the rule introduced in 2016. Five of the professionals have been re-signed for 2017. The Ron Singleton Colne Trophy between Burnley and Enfield started the season off on a damp Turf Moor. Enfield batted first made 234 for 8 from a reduced 40 overs with stand in professional James Price making 115 and Adam Bracewell supporting him in a 104 third wicket partnership. Tom Lawson took 5 for 26 from his 8 overs. Burnley stumbled to 66 for 4 in reply but a stand of 92 between Michael Kelly and stand in professional Owais Shah gave the hope but Chris Bowness trapped Shah LBW for 49 and then bowled Michael Kelly for 78 and the innings ended on 214 all out from 38 overs which meant that Enfield had their first ever Colne Trophy win. The season started the following Sunday and Burnley, with Chris Holt back in the side, restricted Bacup to 101 for 8 from their 30 overs, David Brown top scored with 46 not out as they chased the runs down in less than 15 overs. Elsewhere there were wins for Colne, Lowerhouse, Church and Rawtenstall with the matches at Haslingden and Rishton falling victim to the weather. By the end of May Ramsbottom had won 6 games and led the table with 79 points, a 4-point lead over Burnley with Lowerhouse 4 points behind. This was despite having three of their nine games abandoned as no results. In June Ramsbottom won only one of their 4 scheduled games as they had a further 3 games washed out. However, they retained their 4 point lead the lead over Burnley who had also won one and had three washouts, Lowerhouse held on to third place, still a further 4 points behind. As July ended the lead was down to 2 points, with a further two washouts but with 18 games gone, Ramsbottom were still unbeaten. The major change was that the gap between 2nd and third had now opened up to 17 points and a two-horse race seemed to be on the cards.