WHATEVER the outcome of Adlington’s first taste of life in the Premiership division, the Huyton Road club’s hierarchy believe they will be much stronger for the experience.

Adlington, promoted behind Little Lever last season, have started their league campaign with one win from six games, the last two of which have been abandoned by rain - the latest at home to winless Westhoughton on Saturday.

In those six games have come three defeats for captain Simon Trim and co, and they are hovering fourth from bottom above Westhoughton, Bradshaw and bottom side Little Lever.

Chairman Nick Chamberlain speaks for every club in the Bolton League when he says, “The rain hasn’t helped anyone”, with the last two Saturday’s completely washed out in both divisions.

“I’ve got to speak for both our first and second teams, who both got promoted. We both realised that we haven’t got the biggest squads in the league, so we knew it would be difficult,” assessed Chamberlain.

“It’s the experience it gives you playing the likes of Walkden. We’ve got some younger players who are learning from this season. That’s what we’re looking for.

“We’ve given a decent account of ourselves in a lot of games.

“Our second team has been very encouraging. They’ve won a couple of games.”

Adlington’s only league victory came in the opening round, at home to Bradshaw as they defended a 124 target in incredible fashion.

The visitors were within touching distance of the win at 94-4 and later 114-6, only for left-arm spinner Iain Critchley to take four of the last six wickets as the last four wickets fell for just one run.

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“That win gave us a lot of heart and has been one of the positives. It came out of the blue with the way the game panned out,” said Chamberlain.

“If we can stay up and claim a few more wins like the Bradshaw game, we would see that as a successful season for the first team.”

Experienced all-rounder Critchley is arguably the heartbeat of the Adlington side, claiming nine wickets so far.

But new professional Gulraiz Sadaf has shown glimpses of the quality which has seen him previously play alongside the likes of Brendon McCullum as a wicketkeeper batsman in the Pakistan Super League.

“Iain has been around a lot of clubs, but he’s a homegrown lad,” said Chamberlain.

“He started off with our juniors and has been with us for a few spells, including a couple of times as professional. He’s a big part of what we do.

“The professional looks a good player. I think he’s played Nottingham way before, and he takes his responsibility very seriously.

“My wife (Liz) and Andrew Kane, who looks after the juniors, have been running the All Stars programme, and he has been helping out with that. The juniors, we could do with more. But that’s a problem that’s not just limited to us.

“All in all, there’s a lot of good things happening here.”