HOLMFIRTH’S brilliant young leg spinner Tom Craddock has been chosen as the Reg Haigh Trophy winner for the most promising young Drakes League cricketer of the year.

Craddock finished the season with an excellent 72 victims, which included a season’s best of seven for 35 against Meltham along with two six-wicket hauls.

The spinner has been on the radar for a couple of seasons now, but he certainly came to prominence this season (and put himself in the shop window), when he took four wickets in four balls during the Romida Sykes Cup semi-final at Elland back in July.

Craddock becomes the first winner from Holmfirth since Richard Parker won the award in 1997, and he joins a list of some of the best players the League has produced since it was first presented in 1978.

The F E Greenwood Trophy, awarded to the club whose ground is voted the Most Improved in the League, has been won by Drakes Premiership champions Scholes.

And not surprisingly, the man who is responsible for the excellent Chapelgate playing surface, Richard Holmes – who is also the first team wicketkeeper – has won the Tom Walker Award, which is the groundsman of the year award.

Scholes’ Ibrar Latif may have been an important member of their title-winning team this summer, but he has nothing to smile about at the present after suffering a nasty hockey injury last weekend.

As well as being a highly-rated batsman, Latif is also a top class hockey player who is a member of National League Conference North Deesside Ramblers, and it was while in action with them he suffered a facial injury and had hospital treatment.