Cricket preview: Big day in prospect at top of the Northern League

It’s third versus first and second versus fourth, giving the potential for change in those upper reaches.

Leaders Netherfield make the visit to in-form Fulwood and Broughton.

Second-place Fleetwood play host to Leyland at Broadwater.

F&B have won their last three league games to shoot up the table to third place.

Last week’s victory at Barrow came on top of wins over Fleetwood and Kendal.

Mark Smith, skipper of F&B, told the Post: “It is tight at the top at the moment, with one point between the top three clubs and Leyland just behind that.

“To be honest, we are a bit disappointed not to have won a couple more games.

“We should have beaten Longridge and came out of the wrong end of the toss against Penrith.

“We’ve been playing some good cricket and it’s nice to be where we are – the aim is to keep that going.”

Simon Kerrigan has been in decent form, with both bat and bowl.

The ex-Lancashire man, who is F&B’s pro, has taken 24 wickets and hit a century at Kendal last month.

Smith said: “ Simon has been amazing for us.

“He only started bowling again in the last month of last season and this year he’s hit the ground running.

“You can tell that he has been a professional cricketer for the last 10 years.

“He’s taken lots of wickets in the last few games and he got his ton with the bat in the game at Kendal.

“We saw that form with the bat last season when I think he was the second highest scorer in the league.”Elsewhere, Longridge renew an old rivalry on Saturday when they seek to continue their good start to the Northern League season.

They welcome former Moore and Smalley Palace Shield foes Garstang to Newsham for their first league meeting in a couple of years.

Longridge’s first year at Northern League level sees them seventh in the table, one place below Garstang but with the same number of points.

“They had a very similar start to us last year,” said Longridge bowler Ian Simpson of tomorrow’s visitors.

“They were up there at the start and dropped away a little bit towards the finish and ended up in mid-table.

“We want to learn from them because they went up from the Palace Shield the year before we did, and showed just what teams from that division can do.”

That learning curve has taken a couple of forms for the league new boys.

Not only are they coming up against different teams and new grounds, there are also different rules to take into account.

While the Palace Shield operates on a win or loss basis, the Northern League awards points for ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ draws.

Consequently, as Simpson recognised, it is crucial for Longridge to assess a match situation and bat out time if victory looks to be beyond them.

“If we can take two points here and three points there then we aren’t letting teams take full points from us,” Simpson said.

“Those points can make a big difference and it’s something that we’re working on.”

It is a double-header for Simpson and his team-mates this weekend as Sunday sees them travel to the Northern League’s defending champions Blackpool in their latest ECB National Club Championship outing.

The winners will then meet either St Annes or Horwich RMI in their group final, which doubles up as the last-32 stage.

It offers Longridge a chance to make up for their Lancashire Cricket Foundation Club Knockout defeat at Norden seven days earlier.

“We were disappointed about last Sunday because we felt we could progress into the latter stages,” Simpson added.

“The national competition is tougher because you’re playing some good teams from across the country.

“We have been watching Blackpool and how they have been doing but we think they lose a couple of their players to Minor Counties cricket on Sunday.

“We will go hard at them and that’s all we can do – but I don’t know if you’d call it an upset seeing as we’re now in the same league as them.

“We feel we can cause them a few problems and it will be nice to go to Stanley Park and show them what we can do.”

FIXTURES

Northern League: Barrow v Blackpool, Fleetwood v Leyland, Fulwood and Broughton v Netherfield, Kendal v Penrith, Longridge v Garstang, St Annes v Chorley.

Moore and Smalley Palace Shield: Croston v Fylde, Great Eccleston v Penwortham, Morecambe v Eccleston, New Longton v Standish, Preston v 
Vernon Carus, South Shore v Lancaster.