CHRIS MAGUIRE COLUMN: Young talent '“ the case for the defence

By The Newsroom
Published 14th Jun 2016, 08:28 BST
Updated 14th Jun 2016, 10:33 BST
Euxton U13Euxton U13
Euxton U13
Last week's column about the lack of good young cricketers coming through the local leagues sparked a flurry of tweets, e-mails and text messages.

I stand by every word, but I’m using this column to put the case for the other side and highlight some clubs with flourishing youth set-ups.

Chorley Cricket Club deserve a lot of credit. When I was there, the seniors teams were packed with players in their late 30s, 40s and 50s. There were good youngsters like Josh Tolley, but there’s a big difference between picking a youngster and batting him at three, and hiding him at number 10.

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Thankfully those days are over. Second team captain Alex Howarth is relatively young himself, but he’s using his team as a conveyor belt to produce players for the first team.

When Chorley played their National Knockout match at Longridge in May, they had three U17s in Max Harper, highly-rated wicketkeeper Harry Barclay and Joseph Barker.

Edwin Moulton is also only 17 and he’s opened the bowling for Chorley. Harry Barclay’s dad Wayne tweeted me to say the club regularly has 10 juniors in the senior teams.