PADIHAM skipper Callum Clarke believes his maturing side can secure promotion from Section B of the Ribblesdale League this season after another hugely-impressive weekend performance cut the gap to leaders Euxton to two points.

Clarke’s men have lost just two of their last nine games in all competitions – to Section A heavyweights Settle and Great Harwood – after a sticky start to the season which saw them struggling at the wrong end of the table.

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But their renaissance has re-ignited promotion ambitions – not that Clarke ever had any doubts.

“We knew we had the quality in the team to get results,” he said.

“I think we lost something like our first five games, but we have been on a really good run since then and we believe we can get promoted.

“We have a game in hand on Euxton, which is good, but if you don’t win it it doesn’t mean anything. It is a close battle and if you lose one game and a few other teams win it bunches everybody up.”

And Clarke puts his side’s recent rise down to planning.

He said: “We are a young side – there’s only one player in the squad over 27 – but we are batting with more of a game plan now.

“Whereas a couple of years ago we might have been batting more of individuals and trying to hit big runs now we are playing with more of a plan.

“The first three or four batsman are trying to build a foundation and get us into a position at 30 overs where we know we have the firepower to score runs quickly lower down the order.

“Saturday was a perfect example of that and hopefully it is something we can carry on.”

Padiham recovered from 8-2 early on in their win over Earby with opener Jordan Baczkiewicz and Brannon Varley putting on 111 for the third wicket to lay the foundations for Clarke to hit 33 off 30 balls and Nathan Whitehead to bludgeon 73 off 66, which included 12 boundaries.

Padiham closed on 277-7, which proved to be more than enough with the visitors, for who opener Chris Walton top-scored with 49, bowled out for 142. Curtis Meehan impressed with the ball taking 4-26 off seven overs, while there was also four wickets for Whitehead in a fine individual display.

It was a different story on Friday night, though, as Padiham were knocked out of the Ribblesdale League T20 at the quarter-final stage as they lost by 10 wickets to Cherry Tree.

Padiham managed just 80-9 off their 20 overs with only four batsman making double figures and Cherry Tree eased to their target with more than five overs to spare.