Next in our series celebrating titans of club cricket, Scott Oliver profiles a northern powerhouse who combined pace and spin to devastating effect.
Across his 34 seasons in the Bolton League (for Tonge and Astley Bridge) and Northern League (for Chorley), Keith Eccleshare took around 2,800 wickets – most as a tearaway fast bowler, but a good number with the leg-spin he learnt playing on the street as a kid, honed at every net session, then unveiled in matches as his body started to grumble.
Eight times he took 100 in a season, and among his scalps were West Indian Test batsman Rohan Kanhai, hooking an accidental beamer to long-leg first ball of the game, and a young Jacques Kallis, bowled off stump pushing forward to a leggie flicked off his fingers, carrom ball-style. Richie Richardson, facing Eccleshare’s spin while playing for Blackpool in 1995, suggested he should have been playing for England, even at 45.
Cricket was always his main love, though, and a few games for the League Cricket Conference XI allowed him to pit his wits against the best. Playing the West Indies in 1991, he castled his most prized victim: a young BC Lara – although he does admit that by that stage the game had gone. Literally. Having passed their target, the West Indians were just batting on for the extra practice.
