AFTER watching Tonge's game at Eagley a week last Saturday, I was left with two burning questions on my mind, both concerning the Castle Hill side, and both of which can, I suppose, only be answered by Simon Anderton writes Peter Stafford

The first concerns Simon himself, and it is this. Why, when he is in such peak batting form, does he not bat at Number 3? These are the facts. In Tonge's first 10 matches he has hit over 400 runs and has only been dismissed five times. On each of the two occasions I've watched the side, he has been left unbeaten but stranded on 33 and 42.

Surely such a fine player in such good form should be giving himself as much time at the wicket as is humanly possible. Meanwhile, in the same 10 games, the various batsmen to have gone in at No 3 have totalled just 62 runs between them. Their joint average, then, is 6.2. Simon's current average is 83.8.

My other question concerns the bowling, in particular that of Adil Nisar. Since arriving at Castle Hill in 2001 he has hit almost 4,000 runs at an average of over 50, and his pedigree as one of the top club batsmen in the country is beyond argument.

In his first three years at the club his wrist-spin has accounted for 123 batsmen at the acceptable average of 18 runs per wicket. So far this season he has taken just 20 wickets for 667 runs, and that includes his eight for 54 at Walkden.

His current problem seems to be one of indecision as to exactly what kind of bowler he is. In the two games I've seen he has bowled four spells of "seam-up" totalling 39 wicket-less overs which have gone for 141 runs.

While he is not, and never will be an Iqbal Sikander, he does have enough talent as a leg-spinner to trouble most batsmen, and that, surely, is what he should be bowling.

I realise that good seam bowlers are fairly thin on the ground at Tonge this season, but surely that doesn't justify scrapping the most effective weapon in their armoury.

I know that if I had ever been called upon to bat against Nisar, I would have much preferred to have faced his fairly nondescript medium-pacer rather than his leg-spin.

But then I was always terrified by the thought of leg-spin. My former captain, Duncan Worsley, in this paper, wrote about me that "wrist-spinners were always guaranteed to provoke a certain amount of desperation" -- and he wasn't wrong.

Indeed, when Nisar bowls to his main strength, Tonge's present attack contains three leg-spinners, which certainly bucks the current trend in the game.

The two young bowlers Kevin Bath and left-arm medium-pacer Adam Street certainly have all the promise of good things to come. All the club is short of, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, is an experienced stock bowler capable of helping the younger lads up the learning curve and bowling 10 to 15 tight overs per game himself.

In the same match I was more than impressed with Eagley's Steve Foster, who has turned into a much more accomplished performer since he lessened his pace and began to move the ball around a lot more.

In that respect he has emulated one of his predecessors at Dunscar, Andy Cumberbatch, who, some years ago, evolved from the tearaway young fast bowler of wides and no-balls that he was, into a medium-paced cut and swing bowler capable of taking 100 wickets per season as a professional.

With barely a third of the season gone, Steve already has 30 wickets to his credit, along with the Bowler-of-the-Month award in May.

Sunday's interleague victories at Prestwich and Clifton were a credit to all concerned, and while Neil Bannister and Paul Rayment were each correctly adjudged Man-of-the-Match, the performances of Gary Garner, Iqbal Patel, Karl Brown and Rick Northrop would, on another day, have been the stuff of similar awards.

As our innings of 291 for five came to it's end, I asked competition secretary Bob Hinchliffe if any side had ever scored more.

"I shouldn't think so," he replied, at just about the exact time that Neil Bannister would have been clocking up the Association's 300th run.