CLUB professional Jonathan Harvey is shouldering the blame for Baxenden's poor season.

At the half-way stage of the campaign Harvey has scored just 253 runs in eight games - with 146 of those runs coming in in the abandoned game against Oswaldtwistle.

The club have suffered abandoned matches and games rained off but Harvey says that is no excuse.

"I don't know what's happened," he said. "We are inconsistent and it doesn't help when I'm not getting any runs.

"I feel a lot of the blame myself but I don't know why it is happening.

"If I knew why it was happening I'd be able to change it. In general it's just not happening for us."

Harvey, who joined Baxenden from Earby last summer and took the club to third in the Jennings Ribblesdale League in his first season, said there was no problem with morale in the dressing room despite five defeats and just two wins in their 11 league ties.

"There is nothing I can say to get the players more fired up because there is no problem with morale and team spirit.

"The lads are still upbeat even though things haven't been going our way. We just have to turn results around."

It was almost predicable that in one of the only games this season that Harvey performed with the bat - knocking the 146 against Oswaldtwistle - the match was abandoned due to rain. "Most of the games we have lost we have taken to a close finish so maybe our luck needs to change," he said.

This weekend would be as good a time as any for results to turn their way - Baxenden are up against numbers one and three in the league.

"We play Barnoldswick tomorrow and Cherry Tree on Sunday and they are not two easy games," he said.

"But there are no easy games and that has been shown throughout the league this season with everybody beating everybody else.

"We are almost half way through the season but there are only about four wins separating us from top spot.

"I thought at the start of the season that that was how it was going to be and it has turned out that way."

Back in the Baxenden line-up this weekend will be Sam Reidy, who has just returned from university.

Harvey hopes Reidy can boost the batting line-up and make this season more like the last one rather than the one before - Baxenden finished just a point above the bottom two in 2000.

"We did alright last season," said Harvey, who proed for Earby before his move to Back Lane and played for Burnley in the Lancashire League before that.

"I know it will happen sooner or later this year but we know it won't be easy against Barnoldswick and Cherry Tree."