ONE LUNCH TIME IN CROSBY
To cut a long story short I ended my career making cardboard boxes working for a lovely man who lived on the Merseyside Riviera. About the same time, I was involved with Bury District Cricket Development so when I saw that our promising U15’s had a fixture at The Northern Club, barely a long cover drive away from his mansion, I suggested a private off campus meeting to discuss the rising price of paper waste.
We quickly agreed that we had not a clue where the price of waste might end up so repaired to the bar. The Northern Club has a richly colonial sound to it but there was no Gin Sling or Whisky Sour on the tab so we settled on two pints of Guinness and some pork scratchings and turned our attention to the cricket.
Batting for Bury was Thomas Heaton and Bradley Fielding, sons of two semi-legendary local league cricketers, both slow left armers, both with pretensions as batters. What struck me was not they’re obvious talent but their power for one’s so young and the certainty of their intent.
Fast forward to the Log Cabin on Friday night and Brad’s spectacular demolition Of Greenmount’s attack will rightly grab the headlines but don’t discount the contribution of Tom. Decent on the drive and positively brutal on anything short, that same power and clean hitting was to the fore as he and the pro looked like posting a total above 200 before Grimmy squeezed him out.
Back to Crosby and I can’t recall how they got on but I did note that this cohort was one of the one’s to watch out for the future. Charging in from the top end that day was a young man called Rehan Udwadia. The keeper was halfway back to the sight screen which made me chuckle a little until the first ball parted his hair and went for four byes.
It would be nice to see that band of brothers in the same dressing room again one day but Brad and Tom are commendably loyal to the clubs that made them and Rehan is still on his Odyssey so maybe we’ll have to wait a while yet. Either way the future is bright.
