THE air ambulance landed on Morecambe Cricket Club's pitch to airlift an injured player to the RLI after a fight between players on Sunday.

In the event injured Blackpool player David Bartholomew only suffered a broken jaw after allegedly being struck by Morecambe pace bowler Farouk Patel, 28 during the tea time break. He was operated on yesterday (Wednesday).

Mr Patel's club captain Phil Thornton stoutly defended his player, who was arrested but released without charge later, and argued the whole incident had been blown up out of all proportion.

He said: "There had been a very trivial incident between Farouk and the Blackpool player last time we played when Farouk bowled him out. It was nothing.

"Obviously we can't talk too much about the case but Farouk and another one of our lads were feeling threatened after a bit of verbals between them. Again it was nothing serious at that stage.

"And, after seeing the incident itself, I will defend Farouk all the way on this. Calling the air ambulance was ridiculous. I offered to drive the lad there myself. It was clearly a huge waste of public money."

Mr Patel was released without charge on police bail until August 31 pending further enquiries.

Members of the cricket club's committee discussed the matter on Tuesday night. According to club captain Phil Thornton they were considering whether to send a letter in support of their player to the Vaux Northern Cricket League ahead of their special disciplinary meeting on Wednesday.

Mr Patel was advised not to attend Tuesday night's meeting.

Injured Blackpool player David Bartholomew only suffered minor injuries to his chin.

Scrambling the helicopter from Blackpool cost hundreds of pounds. Most of the money will be shouldered by AA which sponsor the air ambulance.

But Mr Thomas Daniels at Lancashire Ambulance Headquarters was concerned the ambulance was not being used for serious accidents.

He said: "I'm can't be sure exactly how much it costs because of the AA deal. We only have three ambulances for Lancaster and Morecambe and only one is based at Morecambe.

"If they're all being used, we may have to send the air ambulance if someone calls us out to an emergency. But, of course, all our ambulances are supposed to be for a real emergency not for something trivial."

Three police cars arrived at the Woodhill Lane ground to affect the arrest.

A spokesman at the Northern League confirmed an investigation panel had been set up. The rest of the vital semi-final was played out amicably and Morecambe won the match which was attended by about 300 spectators.

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