IT'S make-or-break time for Jennings Ribblesdale League title hopefuls Great Harwood tomorrow when they face defending champions Padiham at the Arbories.

Defeat for Harwood will end their chances of winning the championship for the first time since 1900.

But in-form professional Shantanu Sugwekar believes they can pull off the result they need against the leaders to keep their hopes alive.

"We beat them in the first half of the season and we always fancy our chances against them.

"If we play basic, simple cricket and make less mistakes than them we should win the game. We will give it our best shot," said Sugwekar, who is likely to go past 1,000 league runs for the season in this weekend's crunch double-header.

A five-point victory might be enough for Harwood if they can then better Padiham's result against Barnoldswick on Sunday when they visit Cherry Tree.

But with third-placed Harwood also two points adrift of Ribblesdale Wanderers, Sugwekar isn't taking any chances.

"We have to get two seven-pointers and we need Ribblesdale Wanderers to lose one. They have a hard game against Cherry Tree tomorrow but we have got two tough ones. "It's very tight at the top. We have done very well in the past couple of months after a bad run in the first four or five games and we deserve to be in this position," added the Indian strokemaker, who will be returning for a second season at Cliffe Park next summer.

Harwood have stayed the pace superbly with six wins out of the last seven games putting them right in the hunt.

And last weekend they showed their nerve in staging two successful run-chases, beating Earby by eight wickets in one of them thanks to a 200-partnership between Daniel Cheesbrough and the professional, whose 111 not out came off just 98 balls.

"The boys are doing very well. We practised well this week and we'll have to see what happens," Sugwekar added.

"It's a good team as I have said before, it just needs polishing. Give them two more years and they will be top of the league for a quite a long time.

"For amateur talent I don't think there's another side in the league as good."

Tomorrow's fixtures: Baxenden v Clitheroe, Edenfield v Blackburn N, Oswaldtwistle v Earby, Padiham v Great Harwood, Read v Settle, Ribblesdale W v Cherry Tree, Whalley v Barnoldswick.

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