GREENMOUNT captain Phil Heaton is satisfied the club are heading back in the right direction after deciding to retire from cricket on a high after guiding them to the Division One title.

The club stalwart, who was a member of the 1988 and 2011 Bolton League title-winning sides, announced his decision to bow out on Saturday after Greenmount’s showdown at title rivals Heywood was rained off.

The entire programme was a washout in what was a disappointing finale to the season in every division, barring Division Two, which has two more games remaining.

Bad weather denied Woodbank the chance to claw back the four-point gap behind Premier Division leaders Flixton.

But there was good news for other local sides as Radcliffe clinched promotion from Division Three, while ELPM secured the Division Four West title and Tottington St Johns were promoted from the same division.

Yet it was Greenmount who were arguably the biggest winners on the day, although Heaton admits promotion, rather than the title, was always the club’s main concern.

“I have been struggling with a knee problem for a number of years now and if things had been different last season I would have likely called it a day then,” he said.

“But I did not want my last act at Greenmount to be relegation from the Premier Division.

“After going down last season we set about rebuilding the side. Promotion was always the aim, but we figured we might as well go go for the title if the chance was there.

“And I am glad to say it has worked out.

“For me personally, it has been a fantastic year. I got to play regularly alongside my son (Tom) and we even played at Lord’s a few weeks ago.

“I spent four years there as a teenager, that’s where it all started for me, so to be out there at Lord’s batting alongside my son was like a dream come true.

“This season could not have gone any better for us really, and I am happy now to hand over the reins with us back where we belong in the Premier Division.”

Professional Kaustub Pawar has arguably been the shining light for Greenmount, topping the Division One batting averages with 87.38 and ending the campaign with more than 1,300 runs in all competitions. He also weighed in with 31 wickets in the league, finishing 17th in the bowling averages.

The club acted quickly to sign him up for another season, and Heaton believes he has the potential to be one of the great Greenmount professionals.

“All the experienced lads in the team, who know a bit about the game, could see straight away he was something special,” added Heaton.

“He scored two centuries in his first four innings, and one of those was 175 not out.

“I have played alongside some pretty good professionals at Greenmount, you don’t get much better than Mark Taylor and Matthew Hayden.

“It is hard to compare Kaustub with those two as they played in a different era. Arguably, the standard in the Bolton League back then was much higher than Division One of the Greater Manchester League, but you have to be a great player to score 1,300 runs and on paper at least Kaustub’s stats compare favourably to Taylor and Hayden’s.

“The test for him now will be to reproduce this year’s form in the Premier Division. But I have no doubt he has the ability to cope with that challenge.”