The Drakes Huddersfield Cricket League is a marvel in cricket history and continuity.
Its first season was way back in 1892 and comprised the ten clubs of Armitage Bridge, Golcar, Holmfirth, Lascelles Hall, Linthwaite, Slaithwaite, Cliffe End, Huddersfield United, Lockwood, Meltham Mills.
The first six of those clubs are still around now and will compete in the 2018 season in the Huddersfield Cricket League that nowadays has six divisions – Premiership, Championship & Conference for both first and seconds teams.
From the outside, this West Yorkshire club cricket league can too easily be pigeon-holed as stubbornly traditional and slow to conform.
After all, it is one of only a few cricket leagues in Yorkshire not choosing to be part of the new pyramid that sees four ECB Premier Leagues at the top.
Yet, on closer inspection, the Huddersfield Cricket League is as modern and forward-facing as others and I’ve been particularly impressed with its website and online branding.
As it happens, they are due to have a new website this season and they have integrated with the ECB’s Play-Cricket platform for 2018.
To briefly crunch some numbers and stats: Ex-Yorkshire 2nd XI cricketers Gurman Randhawa (71 wickets for Hoylandswaine) and Mosun Hussain (1,508 runs for Delph and Dobcross) were the lead performers last season (across HCL Premiership and league cup combined).
In 2017, Hoylandswaine won the Premiership title and Scholes ended a 21-year wait to lift the Sykes Cup.
Swaine have signed the likes of Scott Jones, Andy and David Judge although their highest-profile addition is ex-Durham allrounder Usman Arshad from Sunderland.
Challengers Delph and Dobcross will be captained once more by Andy Gleave with Mosun Hussain hoping to back up that stellar last year with the bat and offspinning allrounder Arron Lilley in form for Lancashire with 83 not out in early April.
As ever with county cricketers, their availability will be hit and miss with Delph’s Luke Proctor moving to Northants over winter from Lancashire and starting well against Middlesex at Lord’s.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Shreevats Goswami is not back for another year with Delph but is instead currently learning from Kane Williamson at IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad. Ex-Lancashire Seconds allrounder Chris Tipper joins from Glossop.
It will be interesting to see how their new overseas signing goes, signed from Baildon in the Bradford League. Waqas Masood is a Pakistani cricketer with 217 first-class wickets who bowls left-arm pace. Meanwhile, Delph have snapped up another Bradford League bowler in East Bierley’s Umer Yaqoob.
Another club aiming to challenge for the league title will be Shepley who have Greg Wood back at the club after a few seasons at Wrenthorpe. Wood will be captaining Shepley in 2018 with former skipper Danny Glover moving to vice-captain.
Opening batsman John Anderson joins from the successful Sydney grade cricket team of Northern Districts.
A few other league transfers that caught the eye included Charlie Roebuck, returning to Broad Oak from Treeton, Eddie Walmsley going to Moorlands from Methley and Scholes signing Yaasar Imtiaz from Yorkshire Academy.
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