SPORT rarely has much room for sentiment, but there has been plenty of it to go round at Bowling Old Lane Cricket Club this season.
Their evening league team, full of single dads and men who struggle with their mental health, nearly all from the BD5 area, have sensationally seen off hot favourites Undercliffe to win Division Two of the Bradford & District Evening League unbeaten, defeating their more established rivals in a title decider.
Some of Bowling Old Lane’s squad do not even have all the correct cricket apparel and many do not play regularly, so it was hardly surprising they finished bottom in the last two seasons, winning just once in 2022 and repeating that feat in 2023.
This year has marked an extraordinary turnaround, with thrilled captain Amir Cruise saying: “The lads who we have here, nearly all of them played junior cricket at Bowling Old Lane.
“But then they’ve had families, some have become single dads, some have suffered with addictions, some struggle with mental health issues, so it’s just been getting them in the right frame of mind to come and play cricket.
“Sometimes I’ve had people pull out of games on the day and they’ve told me they can’t get out of bed because they’re not mentally in the right frame of mind.”
So, while Old Lane are ecstatic to have won the title, their achievement is about far more than just silverware.
Cruise said: “One million per cent, the most important thing has been to give these guys who’ve been struggling a place to play and enjoy their cricket.
“With us losing all the time before, they’d find it frustrating and they’d be despondent, because they’re competitive guys who want to win.
“But I’d always say the most important thing was that they were here, they were playing cricket, and that we didn’t need to win.”
Yet all of a sudden, in 2024, the BD5 side were able to factor victories into the equation too.
Cruise said: “Our first four games got rained off this season, but somehow that left us second in the table.
“I told the boys we could use that position to go on and do something, so some went out and bought their own bats, we started netting more, practicing regularly, and it’s just been an awesome year.
“We beat Undercliffe in our final game to win the title, and they had five or six of their first-team players, while we had some lads in black trainers, so it was a shambles on paper, yet we beat them.
“I got run out and that left us on 45-5 chasing 132 to win, needing 16 an over, but one of the lads came in, a single dad who doesn’t get to play regularly, and absolutely blitzed it.
“He hit something like 36 off his first eight deliveries and we ended up winning with three balls to spare.
“It helped that we had another lad at the other end who’s a good player and made 50.
“He’s our only regular cricketer outside of that Bowling Old Lane circle of ours, and we needed his presence.
“But the rest of us are Bowling Old Lane, or BD5, because I wanted to keep the side local.”
Old Lane will take part in Finals Day later this month at Undercliffe Cricket Club, but Cruise insists that is a battle they cannot win, going up against “phenomenal” Division One opposition in the semis.
But, as Cruise said himself, their achievement is just making that showpiece.
However, he has been saying throughout the season that his side would not win certain games.
Old Lane have proved their captain wrong all year, so do they have one more almighty shock left in them?
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