Saints march towards new season

Denton St Lawrence Cricket Club’s Ben Tighe believes the first team is strong enough to deliver success to Sycamore Park.

Following a memorable cup double in 2019, in which the first team scooped the Greater Manchester Premier Division title and the Derek Kay Cup, the Saints were made to wait to defend their titles due to the Covid outbreak last year.

But following news that the Greater Manchester Cricket League will officially start on April 17, the Saints are preparing to take to the pitch and retain their status as the best in the region.

And Ben, who is entering his ninth season with the club, is fully confident that, barring any disruptions caused by Covid-19, the squad has the quality to make it a summer to remember. Speaking to Reporter Sport, he said: “As long as Covid doesn’t have anything to do with it, we’re hoping for a normal season where professionals can come over and we can have promotions and relegations, which I think is massive because it gives you that competition and gives you something to play for.

“We were double winners in 2019 so we want to defend our titles. I think that would be a great achievement if we could do it again, but obviously it’s a long summer and a big task ahead. We would love to have a good stint in the Lancashire Cup as we’ve not gone as far as we would have liked to in recent years.

“On paper I think we have a good side which has depth in bowling and depth in batting. We would also like to get to finals day in the T20 tournament. We’ve only been to finals day once I think, and we lost in the first semi-final, so if we can do a bit better than that then we’ll aim high and go as far as we can.”

Although 2020 was a year to forget for obvious reasons, the Saints did enjoy a summer of cricket in a revised format against other local clubs. A season which started at the end of July, comprised 10 games for each Club, and was played under ‘Covid compliant’ conditions came to an end at the end of September, with the Saints finishing second in a division that included Woodhouses, Denton West, Flowery Field, Denton and Glossop.

Following a season with no promotions or relegations, the prospect of taking part in real, competitive cricket has Ben excited.

And he also feels that, due to the boredom created by the lockdowns over the past 12 months, there will be a renaissance in terms of participation rates across the borough. He said: “I know lots of people who are coming out of retirement that want to compete in lower level cricket, or even just friendly cricket. I think it’s really important, but for me, regarding cricket this year, for cricket clubs to survive a season needs to happen.

“We’ve seen clubs in recent years disappearing, but the second biggest thing for me is the junior section of a club. Last year I was flabbergasted, as I saw that some clubs had chosen not to play junior cricket and just kept senior cricket going with friendlies. I couldn’t get my head around that as we know what children are like these days with computers, and for that time period, for a child not to play cricket, was terrible. Once you start losing your juniors, further down the line you end up with a gap in your club, so I think this year, more than anything, clubs need cricket to survive and adults, mentally, need cricket.”

The strength of a junior section plays an integral part to the long term growth and sustainability of a club. The Saints pride themselves on a strong production line of youngsters that eventually progress into the senior ranks. However, Ben was worried at the lack of junior action from a number of clubs. “The junior set-up at Lawrence’s over the past few years has been brilliant, and to be fair it also started before I even joined the club.

“This is my eighth or ninth year at the club, but before I joined there was a chap at the club called Alf Walton who put a lot into the junior section. The current first team captain and chairman, Adam Hawley took over from Alf and the plan that was put in place from the cricket committee was that we had to recognise the future of the club is the juniors.

“You can have a great team for five years, but at some point that team is going to stop performing because of age and job commitments. At one point we did have a little gap; for example we didn’t have an Under 17s in 2019 because the next crop of youngsters coming through were all under 13s, and it was too much of a step up for them. In the 2019 season we saw 70 per cent of our third team were probably under the age of 18, so they’re experiencing senior cricket at a lower level, but it’s a great path for them.”

Ben has recently launched his own podcast, Catches Win Matches, that debates a variety of topics with a number of different guests. In his first episode, Ben spoke to two World Cup Winners from the 2015 England Disability Cricket Team, who discussed their achievements in International and Club Cricket, along with how they have coped through the dark days of living with a disability. Other guests have included former Lancashire Cricketer and current First Class umpire, Steve O'Shaughnessy and his best friend and Current Head of Umpires in the GMCL, Ian Herbert. You can access the podcast on Spotify.