In an extract from the follow-up to the award-winning Sticky Dogs and Stardust: When the Legends Played in the Leagues, out on March 24, Scott Oliver tells the story of Abdul Qadir’s arrival at Hanging Heaton and the role played by Pakistan captain (and one-time Wakefield superstar) Imran Khan. *** Abdul touched down in Manchester […]
Cricket leagues
Celebrating league and cup doubles (and going undefeated)
After a season of LBWs, run outs, unplayable deliveries, huge sixes, drama and tension, many of Yorkshire’s cricket leagues have now been decided. Commiserations if your team is destined for a lower division in 2025. With luck and a fair wind, you’ll bounce back next year. But there are those who have not only won […]
Three becomes one: Yorkshire Premier League North merger
Years ago, I made one of my crystal ball-gazing predictions that the landscape in Yorkshire club cricket would see much bigger leagues but less of them. A decade on and that seems to have chimed true with the likes of the Yorkshire Cricket Southern Premier League and Yorkshire Premier League North now gigantic – and […]
Ravenscar XI vs Scarborough Beckett League Women’s XI
Jon Stokoe shares news of a new women’s changing room at Ravenscar Cricket Club with an unveiling that included a cricket match on the North Yorkshire coast. Ravenscar Cricket Club held a special game on Saturday 7 September. It was to celebrate the opening of a newly built women’s changing room. The game was a […]
Club cricket groundskeepers face race against time to be ready
In something of a repeat of last year, the wet weather has played havoc with pitch makers who face the usual race to be ready for April fixtures. In 2023, my article on Yorkshire’s leagues postponing fixtures caught the attention, on account of the fact that we’d had record-breaking rain and many clubs had been […]
Hamzah Hussain: The architect behind Cricket Arena
Hamzah Hussain blinks at me studiously from behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses before beginning to share how the game of cricket inspired him. It is an interview I’ve been excited about for ages. Hamzah is the architect (literally as it turns out) behind Cricket Arena, a community interest company that organises cricket tournaments in […]
Straight Drive to Survive: Vinesh’s Story
Vinesh Patel is this year’s Cricket Innovator Award winner at the YCB’s Cricket Collective Awards. They celebrate the efforts of volunteers across the grassroots game and are organised by the Yorkshire Cricket Board, in partnership with Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation. Vinesh or ‘Vinnie’ as he’s known, has done something pretty […]
Premier League cricket clubs strengthen squads for 2024
The assumption might be that this time of year is quiet, as the days shorten, but Premier League clubs in Yorkshire are busy signing new players for 2024. Here is a selection of moves I’ve seen announced from clubs in the Premier Leagues. As usual, these are subject to the usual caveats of league paperwork, […]
Starbeck Cricket Club: Only just getting started
A new cricket club forming in Yorkshire is unusual, if not completely unheard of. There are already some 800 or so across the region – so why go to the effort of setting up your own? Starbeck Cricket Club, who finished their first season in Division Eight of the Nidderdale Cricket League as champions, have […]
History makers: Thornton win the treble and go undefeated
Thornton Cricket have had an extraordinary year in the Halifax Cricket League by anyone’s standards. They have now won the Premier Division for First XIs at a canter, claimed the Parish Cup at Copley against Illingworth St Mary’s and lifted the T20 Cup by defeating Oxenhope by eight wickets. It’s an irresistible march to a […]