The weather recently hasn’t suggested it but the 2016 cricket season is now with us and Saturday sees the opening of the campaign for all the Spencer Wilson Halifax League clubs.

Many other local leagues have re-scheduled fixtures due to grounds being unfit and not prepared for the season. The Halifax league decided to leave this decision to the clubs much to the dismay of many on social media.

A quote from the league regarding this “As such if a club feels that their ground will be unfit for this weekend , then they may cancel the match on the Friday Evening with the agreement of the opposing club”.

We are lucky at Hedgetop that we have a fast drying ground and an excellent team of ground staff who have been able to prepare our pitch ready for the season opener against Booth.

Chris Conroy’s will be looking for his team to make a good start to the 2016 season and the first back in Premier Division for 5 years. They couldn’t start with a much tougher fixture as they host last year’s runners up Booth.

They ran eventual league winners Jer Lane all the way in 2015 and narrowly missed out on silverware by only 4 points. Hedgetop boast new signings Olly Hemingway and Tom Clee in their team for the weekend and will come up against Booth’s Rob Laycock who scored 1007 runs last season.

Captain Conroy last season amassed just short of 1000 runs and will be hoping to continue leading from the front with the bat.

It’s been a long time since the firsts were in the premier and all the lads are very excited and looking forward to the challenges ahead.

Team – Conroy, Mallard, Litjens, Fearnley, Hemingway, Clee, Cole, Saghir, Smith, Talbot, Byrnes.

The second team in contrast to the firsts will be starting life in the Roy Smith 1st Division after relegations last season. They travel to Stones and newly appointed captain Daniel Phipps has picked a team full of experience and he will be hoping to utilise the brains of Ian Stocks, Steffan Litjens and Steve Parkinson amongst others to help him along the way.

Team- Phipps, Stocks, Parkinson, Klemm, Prentice, Ashton, Buss, Gledhill, Cole, Litjens, Swaine.

#UptheHedgetop