Head coach Tom Lambert has named a 13 man squad for this Sunday’s Marlborough cup game with Wiltshire at Westbury CC. Following debut’s for Matt Dalrymple, Sully Akhtar and Yash Lakhani last week, Tommy Sturgess comes into the squad and is set to make his first appearance since joining the royal county from Cornwall.
Our men go into Sunday’s game off the back of two hard fought wins against Middlesex Academy at Wormsley. Game one saw Dan Lincoln’s side battle their way to 127 off the back of excellent bowling from the Middlesex youngsters, 5 of whom had come through our player pathway and EPP. Two of whom, Naavya Sharma and Eddie Campion, returning excellent figures. Pick of our batters was Euan Woods who made 43. In reply the game was always in the balance but experience came to the fore as Dan Lincoln was able to shuffle his spinners and squeeze Middlesex batters who eventually fell 8 runs short of the target. Debutant Sully Akhtar returning excellent figures of 2-12 (4) whilst Adam Searle was also miserly with 2-17 (4).
The second game in the late afternoon sun saw Middlesex bat first on this occasion and the bowlers once more hit their straps restricting our opponents to just 108 in their 20 overs. Yash Lakhani was the pick of the bowlers on his debut, picking up 3-14 (4). Johnny Connell set the chase on its way in attacking style with a quick fire 35 and aside from a late flurry of wickets, our men were able to get over the line in the 13th over for the loss of 6 wickets.
Head coach Tom Lambert gave us his views on the encounter and looked ahead to this weekends trip to Wiltshire:
“After the weather being the way it has it was a relief to get outside and get the season underway. Last summer we had no pre season and it was looking similar again this April with the amount of rain that had fallen in February and March. A massive thank you to Wormsley for hosting us and having the ground in such a good state this early in the season. We took a lot out of the day and hit our straps with the ball and in the field. We’ll look to improve one or two things with the bat this coming weekend, but I was still pleased with most aspects of the day.”
“Looking ahead to Sunday, we will still look to try out some different combinations over the two games and get some more game time into the players ahead of the T20 competition starting for real next week against Hertfordshire. We look forward to welcoming Tommy Sturgess into the group for his debut in the only change from last weeks 13, as he replaces the unavailable Andy Rishton.”
Supporters are welcome to attend Sunday’s final pre season game, we look forward to seeing you there.