IT might only have been half a season but Oakworth can take plenty of heart from their 2020 campaign in the Mewies Solicitors Craven League.

They won Group B of the Covid Regional Competition and, as club secretary Michael Davison alluded to, it was the blue-riband section.

He enthused: “To top a group by five points (26 to 21) from 2019 champions Crossflatts, who are leaving to join the Bradford League, and Bingley Congs (third on 18 points), who were runners-up a year ago, was an excellent achievement.

“We have a good first team under new captain Rob Hollingsworth, with plenty of lads in their twenties and a few in their thirties, and we were good with bat and ball.

“It sets us up well for 2021.”

As for the format that the league employed, the deep-thinking Davison said: “They did all that they could do.

“We played some cricket and the league decided to reduce the number of overs and have no promotion or relegation, as most leagues did.

“The Aire-Wharfe League decided to go for a normal number of overs and promotion and relegation, and who is to say who was right and who was wrong?”

One thing that Denholme second-team skipper Chris Dennison thought that the Craven League got wrong was to suspend matches on August 1 and 8.

This was done because of a rise in coronavirus cases in inner-city Bradford and Pendle Borough Council, which are at opposite ends of the league’s spectrum.

However, he agreed that the league got most things right, in a campaign where Denholme seconds won Group F by three points from Glusburn firsts.

There were some tight matches, with Dennison adding: “We won a game by three runs, lost another by one run and won others by seven runs and nine runs.”

He is looking forward to seeing how teenagers Zac Wheatley and Jack Peel perform in 2021 now that they have another year under their belts.

Cowling’s second team finished top of Group G by three points from Embsay seconds.

Cowling second-teamer Ben Davy said that their success - they had six ‘proper’ victories in their 10 matches - was down to “a good balance of age and youth”.

He added: “The league did the best that they could in what was a first for everybody.

“We had a good skipper in Yasser Chatta, a good opening bat in Steve Dalby and a good seam bowler in Aqib Chatta, who was very accurate.

“We also had first-team captain Martyn Dalby help us out in one game.

“Now we hope that we can build on this success next season.”

In the Bradford Premier League, Keighley struggled in Division One, winning just one of their eight league games.

They also went out in the T20 Cup group stages.