ON THIS DAY by Paul Hargreaves.
3rd May, 1992 Lowerhouse vs Rawtenstall.
It was Lowerhouse’s fourth game of this season. They’d lost at East Lancs and at home to Enfield. In the former game they’d had their opponents at 29-6 but to no avail. At least it was third time lucky on the eve of the Rocky game as Church were beaten.
Lowerhouse batted first and were almost totally reliant on their young South Australian pro’ Cameron Williamson. I remember he was praised for his uplifting keenness by Club stalwart Ken Smalley. He made an impressive 82 out of 129-9 in 46 overs. Simon Payne’s 13 was the second highest contribution. He would later play many years successfully at Baxenden. Only Phil Astin(10) was also able to reach double figures. Rawtenstall’s popular pro’ Colin Miller took 6-48. He had achieved the 100 wicket-1,000 runs double in 1990. He followed Cec Pepper and Vijay Hazare(both in the 1949 season) as only the third player to perform that feat. Only Chris Harris has followed suit and given the bowling restrictions, he will be the last. Miller would later change his bowling style to from fast medium to off-spin and play for Australia. One good thing was the usually lethal Keith Roscoe was tamed taking just 1-61.
Opener John Kershaw(55) dominated the reply and his 62 run partnership with Brian Terry(31) threatened to derail ‘House. Yet batsmen as good as Miller, Peter Wood, Glenn Barlow, and Brian Payne all failed miserably. Rawtenstall were 107-5 but were bottled up to finish tamely on 112-9. Williamson took 4-60 but the star was young James Capstick(5-15), another future Baxenden recruit. He played 64 games in his Lowerhouse stint and these were his best figures.
A good win for Lowerhouse and they’d balanced their seasonal record at 2 wins and 2 losses. A good weekend’s work indeed!