Two of the most prolific batsmen in the embryonic stage of our cricketing summer are from Yorkshire. Yorkshire County Cricket Club captain Gary Ballance is one (scoring hundreds for fun) but can you name the other? Leeds Bradford MCCU batsman Martin Andersson is not a name who is up in lights just yet but he can reasonably claim to be… Read more →

A few weeks back, my Sunday was given over to Old Sharlston Cricket Club vs Great Preston in the opening round of the National Village Cup. The day began as days always should with a highly nutritious, low-calorie (very) premature lunch…a Greggs sausage roll on the concourse of Wakefield Westgate railway station. The friendliness of host club Old Sharlston CC… Read more →

Clifton Alliance Cricket Club had come up in conversation and been recommended a few times by those that know their cricket and it did not disappoint. Ostensibly visiting York Cricket Club for The Cricket Paper, a growing stomach and rumours of a ‘proper cricket tea’ meant wandering over to CACC’s refurbished clubhouse was a no-brainer. Clifton Alliance Cricket Club are… Read more →

York Cricket Club’s Clifton Park HQ would not be out of place on a nature reserve, its wooden panel frontage and shimmering glass aesthetic augmented by the expanse of balcony. There were no curlews or lapwings in attendance for this ECB Yorkshire Premier League North fixture on parade from the viewing platform but pockets of cricketers stretching, jogging, catching and… Read more →

Imagine you are a member of a gym and when renewal swings round, they ask for your cash, expect you to sign up again and yet don’t really express why you should. It might be the nudge you need or you might feel like they should have tried harder to keep your business and decide to invest your pounds elsewhere.… Read more →

For this asthmatic and somewhat unfit forty-something, the steep incline from Batley railway station that leads to Hanging Heaton Cricket Club’s Bennett Lane base almost defeated me. Nonetheless, cricket was in the offing and I arrived red-faced and pleased for the nippy wind that offset the promise of sunshine and a Bradford Premier League fixture undisrupted by the weather; a… Read more →