Jury out as format fails to score

CRICKET: ANOTHER Lake Garage CLL season is all but over. Sunday sees the last round of fixtures for the 16 clubs.

This summer there have been two divisions of eight teams: has it been a success?

I’m not convinced it has - in as much as the new format hasn’t achieved its primary aim of creating more competitive cricket.

The idea was that the best teams in the CLL would not spend half their time beating up the least talented opposition. That would lead to closer matches - not to mention more meaningful ones, with promotion and relegation in mind. or so the theory went.

This has failed to materialise. From a long way out, Middleton and Milnrow were doomed to relegation from the Premier division and Werneth and Royton virtually guaranteed promotion the other way.

Those two Premier Division clubs have proved cannon fodder for the rest, and it’s been the same in the second tier with Oldham and, to a lesser degree, Ashton, losing far more than they managed to win despite avoiding the CLL big guns in matches expected to give them a chance of success.

That said, it is far too soon to dismiss the two-tier system. I was an advocate and remain so; a one-year trial is no barometer of success or failure.

Some players remain secptical. Taking on the same opposition virtually every month hardly gets the juices flowing, they say – and we all know what familiarity breeds . . .

What do you think?

Email me with your view: keithmchugh@oldham-chronicle.co.uk