CEC WRIGHT continues to defy the ravages of time in the Saddleworth & District Cricket League at the age of 80.
And it is far from going through the motions for Cec who remains a star performer for Uppermill’s second team.
Last season he finished the second leading wicket taker in the Second Division with 52 dismissals at an average of 13.4.
And this season he is on course again to take a half century of wickets as he bowls the maximum permitted 12 overs in each match.
Cec, whose son Courtney retired from playing before his father, said: “I wish I knew the reason for my longevity, but I couldn’t tell you what it is.
“It has probably helped that I have not put on a lot of weight and I haven’t had any injuries.
“I am not feeling too bad apart from a few aches, especially after a double-header weekend when I have bowled 24 overs.”
Cec, who reached his landmark 80th birthday last December, can count 12-year-old Jake Hill as one of his Uppermill team mates – a player young enough to be his great-great grandson.
And he has missed only one match this season and that was because of his wife Enid’s birthday celebrations.
Cec has had a remarkable career spanning over 70 years and is thought to have taken over 7,000 wickets – surely that is a record – and played alongside some of the game’s greatest-ever players, the likes of Sir Frank Worrall, Sir Gary Sobers, Sir Viv Richards, Joel Garner and Denis Compton.
He was raised in Jamaica where he was born and began playing cricket at the age of nine when he was already showing great promise.
The pace bowler had already represented Jamaica when he first arrived here is 1959 to become professional at Crompton in the Central Lancashire League.
He would return to the Caribbean in the winter but, after three years, decided to put down roots here.
Cec was a professional at Crompton, Colne, Walsden, Astley Bridge and Uppermill and in more recent times had spells as an amateur at both Crompton and Uppermill.
In one golden five-year period as a professional, Cec took 538 wickets, an average of one every 27 deliveries.
And in his 10 years as professional at Uppermill, Cec helped bring instant success as they were crowned league champions in 1981, their centenary year.
It was their first title since 1950 and the following year was followed by a league and Tanner Cup double and another championship in 1984.
Cec, who has been saying for the last three decades that every year would be his last, has no immediate plans to retire.
“So long as I remain healthy, I will carry on and everybody at the club wants me to keep going,” he explained.
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