ORRELL HOPE TO PROSPER WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS

Date: 7th April 2014

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

Skipper Naylor looks to youngsters

Finishing fourth in the First Division of the Med Imaging Liverpool Competition would seem to be a useful platform from which to mount a challenge for a place in the ECB Premier League, but Orrell Red Triangle’s hopes of joining the élite have been hit by the unavailability of three players for the 2014 season.

Richard Smith has retired, Andrew Mottram will be playing golf and Mark Waddington will be playing professional football, all of which leaves the Winstanley Road club lacking both their first choice spinners from last season and probably needing to rely on Scott and Mark Friend to weigh in with plenty of runs if a strong promotion campaign is to be sustained.

The amicable brothers did well in 2013: Scott Friend, who will be vice-captain this year, scored 584 runs and Mark racked up 547 but ORT skipper Dave Naylor admits that some of the club’s younger cricketers will be getting first team experience earlier than they might have envisaged.

“I think we’ll be up there but it will be tough,” he said. “The loss of Richard, Andrew and Mark is massive and it does place a huge burden on Scott and Mark. Although we have plenty of seam bowling options, we’ve lost our spinners and there will have to be players coming into the side sooner than they should.”

However, Orrell have not been tempted to recruit an overseas player to fill any short-term gaps that might appear. In common with a number of other Liverpool Competition clubs, officials at ORT prefer to put their money into their junior cricket and facilities. They do so reassured that the overall health of the club is sound.