WHILE local sportspeople have been in the midst of their 2023 winter seasons, and the upcoming 2023-24 summer of cricket has been a distant thought, one Portland product has been continuing to play the great game over in the UK.

James Chapple, former Portland Colts wicketkeeper-batsman, has been playing for English cricket club Wakefield St Michael’s in their First XI during the 2023 season.

Chapple’s club is in contention with the best sides in division three of the Bradford Premier League, sitting in sixth place with eyes for a potential top-two finish and promotion with eight games to go.

The competition utilises a promotion/relegation system, where the top two sides from each division at the end of the season move up to the division above, and the bottom two move to the division below.

Chapple said the experience of playing the game he loves in a different part of the world has been eye-opening, adding that the stylistic adjustments he had to make to his batting were significant.

“It took me three or four games to get used to the conditions and the swinging Dukes ball, (that’s) the main difference along with the green pitches,” he said.

“The weather was shocking when I first arrived, we played on some wickets I’ve never played on before… keeping and spending a lot of time up to the stumps probably helped me out a bit.”

Chapple has performed well both with the willow and the gloves, thus far making 494 runs at an average of 33, with a half-century to his name, while also claiming 21 catches and five stumpings in 13 matches.

“We are right amongst the top teams competing for promotion… we’re only just off the top of the table and we’ve beaten every team above us so far,” Chapple said.

“We are going really well, we had a couple close losses and rain affected games at the start, but we went through a stretch where we won eight out of nine matches which brought us back in.

“We’ve got a good mix of players, quite a few aggressive bats so my role has pretty much been to try and anchor the innings and bat through.”

As for what the future holds, Chapple said he plans to travel Europe for the coming months after the season finishes up.

“We’ll see what happens (after that), maybe I’ll end up back (at Wakefield) next year,” he said.