Mid Season Review - 2nd XI

Current Position - 5th

Leading Run Scorer - Harry Standing (303 Runs)

Leading Wicket Taker - Stewart Mohsin (9 Wickets)  

Halfway through the season already and it has been a real learning curve for the team. In the first 5 games, we had 2 of them rained off and got winning draws in the other 3. In that we had a good Clymping side hanging on for the draw as we only needed one wicket. Slinfold we had the time to bowl them out but didn’t create enough opportunities and Crawley Eagles we were very unlucky with some close decisions going against us.

So, a solid start but not quite the explosive start we wanted going into this new league, however losing to Henfield was a bit of a shock, not due to the fact of them beating us but because of how badly we had fielded. It was a bad toss to lose being put in on a wet pitch was never going to be easy and all credit must go to Olly and the lower order in that game for getting us up to a decent total. But to then drop 6 chances in the game meant we should have gone on to win it.

We then lost to Himani and to be honest they were just better, they didn’t give us a sniff of a chance to get anything from the game.

A draw at Ram was again down to drop catches, this time they were setting the total and we should’ve been chasing 140 or so, not 190 something. But we managed to get a draw out of it, which was good in hindsight, as it meant we had stopped the run of losing games.

We then played Broadwater at home last week and everything just clicked, 4 run outs and bowlers keeping it tight, showed what we could do when we are all close to our best. We knocked off the 120 odd with ease and won our first game of the season.

These next 9 games are obviously going to be key. Being 40/40 does favour us as it what our players are used to. We have tough games against Clymping, Broadbridge Heath and Himani to come, if we can overcome these games and win our home games, we will be near the promotion slots at the end of the season. That at the end of the day is always our target.  

By Darren Bazley