I'm really pleased to be sharing my thoughts with you as we embark on this forthcoming season. Similarly I'm very much looking forward to getting on the field as we have some good new signings coming into the squad.

Sadly, we’ve lost Nick Lindley, Harvey Booth and Craig Fletcher from last season. We wish them all the best with their new clubs and thank them for their service at Cleckheaton. Although not so much good luck being sent to Nick as we will be up against him at Hanging Heaton during the season!

The new signings coming in are Richard Pyrah and our new overseas professional Yousaf Babar, a top order batsman from Pakistan. I’m sure Rich needs no introduction as he is a well known name from Yorkshire CCC and his experience will benefit us as a team massively and I'm looking forward to his input this season.

We will be giving Ethan Lee an opening batters spot this season, alongside the experienced Kris Ward, which is a big opportunity for him and also it’s good to see us as a club continuing to give our younger players every opportunity to shine. It will hopefully be a settled side for the vast majority of the season and our aim is always to keep pushing on and improving year on year. We will have Toby Booth available for the full season which will also be a big plus for us and on a personal level I’m looking forward to playing a full season after my knee surgery last year.

As I said it's great to get our young players in and give them a chance as we will see this season. We have signed a very promising young leg Spinner/ Batsman Ibrahim Ahmed from Spen Victoria and I’m sure with the experience from our "older heads" he will make big strides with us this season. Likewise Jack Stansfield who has come to play his first full season in our 2nd team from Moorlands.

Finally I would like to also say a very big thank you to our supporters and our sponsors who without their support we wouldn’t be able to compete at the level we are playing at. It is very much appreciated.

Hopefully catch up with you all at Moorend soon for a beer!

Good luck to all teams this year.

Thanks
Mally