AFTER a long winter in which English cricket has faced calamity after calamity this weekend will see a number of Wirral's major clubs make a welcome return to action in the Love Lane Liverpool and District Competition.

In the Premier League Wallasey will be hoping to build on last season's success which saw the Rossclare Drive outift finish runners up to champions Northern and win the Ray Digman Trophy.

Greg Beaver is the new captain at the helm and he will be hoping for repeat performances from left-arm spinner Sumit Ruikar, who claimed 79 wickets, and opening batter Jamie Crawley who scored almost 800 runs.

There's also a new skipper in charge at New Brighton where Adam Neal takes over a side this season without the considerable talents of left-arm spinner Ashraf Nawab whose 14 year spell at Rake Lane has come to an end after taking over 1,000 wickets in an incredible career in the Competition. 

Despite the slow bowler's absence, Neal will be confident in the skills of new signings like former Lancashire batter Owais Shah and the emergance of the Botes brothers, all-rounders Sebastian and Louis. Bangladeshi international Arafat Sunny looks an impressive overseas capture. 

Birkenhead Park face a stiff task as they look forward to their first season in the Premier League since 2016 after promotion last year.

Park skipper Tom Foster will be hoping the returning Pakistani Ahmad Safi Abdullah can recapture the form that saw him take a hatful of wickets for Park in 2018 and 2019 while opening batters Mark Rowland and Sam Beadsworth are highly rated. 

In Division One, Caldy will hope to establish themselves in the second tier after coming up as Division Two champions in 2021. 

Captain Mark Wilkie has taken over from Harry Daniel-Jones and can call on the talents of  England learning disability captain Chris Edwards and Dan Hamm, who bowls left-arm spin for the national physical disability side.

Former New Brighton all-rounder Martyn Evans also joined as player coach last season and will be hoping for a better year after injury restricted his appearances in 2021. 

Parkfield Liscard begin their Division Two campaign against Hightown St Mary's on Saturday hoping to an improve on a difficult 2021 which saw them finish ninth with just three wins from the campaign. 

 

Award-winning cricket writer Jamie Bowman will be leading the Globe's cricket coverage this season - please get in touch with him with any news from your club: jamie.bowman@nqnw.co.uk 

We are also keen to print as many pictures from our club's games as we can so please send these to the same email.