Pressure point to prove ally in York Cricket Club's title drive (From York Press)

Pressure point to prove ally in York Cricket Club's title drive

11:25am Friday 3rd August 2012 in Sport By Steve Carroll, Sports reporter

YORK Cricket Club have to keep on winning – and hope title pressures derail arch-rivals Harrogate.

The Clifton Parkers take on Appleby Frodingham tomorrow in the Solly Sports Yorkshire ECB County Premier League in a tremendous run of form, having just booked a semi-final spot in the ECB National Club Challenge.

But, despite all their success, they still remain 14 points adrift of unbeaten Harrogate at the top as they bid to achieve a sixth successive league title and know their destiny is out of their own hands.

Struggling Appleby, languishing third bottom in the table, visit with vice-captain Nick Kay well aware that victory is a must.

He is hoping that if York, who themselves have lost only twice this year, can continue to bring pressure to bear, the leaders might slip up.

“We know it’s out of our hands to a certain extent and we need another Yorkshire League side to do us a favour and get us back in the run in,” he said.

“We look like being the realistic challengers to Harrogate and all we can do is keep winning.

“It’s not easy for a team to go through the season completely unbeaten. We are hoping that, for a team that haven’t been challenging for the title for the last few years, the run-in might cause them some problems.

“We have seen it happen in the past and have come from behind. We are playing some good cricket and we have improved enormously since the start of the season.

“We are confident we can give anyone in the country a game, as we are proving in the National Knockout.

“If we play to the best of our ability, we will win the game against Appleby.”

Rotherham visit Clifton Park the following day for a League Cup encounter with York focused on trying to pick up another piece of silverware. But, with a hectic set of fixtures over the next month, the team will see changes from Saturday’s league clash.

Tom Pringle is unavailable for both games and is replaced by Josh Barrett. On Sunday, Pringle is joined on the unavailable list by Kay and captain Dan Woods, who is playing for Cheshire in the Minor Counties competition. In their places, come Simon Lambert and Jake Murphy.

Kay added: “It’s an important competition to us but, with our fixtures, we have an opportunity to give some young lads a game. There are two or three players in the second team who want to go and prove they can play Yorkshire League cricket.

“We are playing one of the best sides in Rotherham and they will be very tough to beat.”