DAVID Pearson has retired from club cricket, having played his last East Lancs game for the seconds in Sunday's Junior Cup final defeat at Haslingden.

The prolific runscorer and former wicketkeeper was picked for the second team, rather than East Lancs' successful Worsley Cup side.

But he denied that had been behind his decision to call it a day locally and concentrate on his commitments to Minor Counties side Cumberland.

"It is a combination of a lot of things," he said of his decision which was given to East Lancs skipper Mark Lomas on Sunday and will be officially passed on to the committee tonight.

"I am getting maried at the end of September, I have a new job at the sports centre which involves weekends and makes time off harder to get.

"And I haven't been in the best of nick, which doesn't help. The week in, week out grind doesn't hold any interest for me any more." Pearson joined East Lancs from Blackburn Northern in 1982 and, for a number of years, was a top wicketkeeper as well as an opening batsman of quality.

He boasts the second-highest number of victims in a season, a total of 53 in 1990 putting him second only to record-holder Jack Simpson.

As a batsman, Pearson has scored a half century against every other Lancashire League club and on every league ground. At the start of this season, he also had 10 centuries to his credit, a total bettered only by two players.

Pearson, who scored more than 10,000 Lancashire League runs in his career, broke his own club batting record at Alexandra Meadows in 1994 when he scored 1,015 and became only the sixth amateur in league history to reach four figures for the season.

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