HONLEY’S Tom Craddock was heading down to Loughborough today to test England’s batsmen ahead of the First Test against Pakistan which starts on Thursday.
England bowling coach Peter Such contacted the Holmfirth based leg-spinner and asked him to attend the nets session and give England some practice playing wrist spin.
Following his five-wicket haul (his fourth of the season) against Elland on Saturday, Craddock is now the highest wicket-taking bowler in the Drakes Premiership with 43 League victims to his credit and is obviously looking forward to the experience.
“I can’t wait to test both myself and the England batsman. And I’m particularly looking forward to sending a few down against Eoin Morgan, especially if he’s going to try and reverse sweep me,” said Craddock, who celebrated his 21st birthday last week.
“Unfortunately, I can only bowl against them today, as I’m heading down to Surrey tomorrow to play in a three-day match for the Combined Universities team in a Southern Championship Second Division game.”
In fact Craddock is a very busy man at present, as he also plays for the Leeds/Bradford Universities side, as well as Drakes leaders Honley, and has recently had a couple of trial games for Northamptonshire, playing for the County’s second team against Somerset, and also for the Combined Uni against Northants.
He also plays for Huddersfield’s White Rose side, and hopefully will be playing for them in the final against the North Yorkshire and South Durham League, although the date and venue for that game has still to be decided.
Craddock, who moved to Honley this season from Holmfirth, for whom he took 72 wickets last year, is approaching is final year at Leeds Metropolitan University, studying Sports Leisure and Culture.
The talented spinner has helped Honley maintain their unbeaten tag in the League this season, and a couple of weeks ago bagged his best return of the summer when he stunned Sykes Cup finalists Skelmanthorpe with an eight for 63 return, and now needs just seven more scalps to win the race to 50 League wickets in the Premiership, and with it a cheque for £75 from the Examiner.
Craddock is the second White Rose man to get to bowl against Test players, as Hoylandswaine’s Ben Potter was invited to bowl against the Australians before their Test at Headingley last week.
