12:10pm Wednesday 9th September 2009
BELHUS Cricket Club is looking back at a successful first season of Shepherd Neame Essex League cricket.
The club joined the league this summer from the Lords International Essex League and saw all its four Saturday sides enjoy solid campaigns.
But first team captain Richard Day, who plans to stand down from the role after leading his side to fifth in Division Three, knows what must be done for the future.
“I’m extremely pleased with our first season in the league,” he said.
“The first XI had a few defeats which could have gone the other way and we could have turned draws into wins.
“We have to learn to bowl sides out as all but one of our draws was when we batted first.
“But overall it has been a decent, solid season for the club. The twos and fours have done well and the threes were better than where they finished up.”
Day expects next summer to be tougher because the North Stifford-based side will no longer be the league’s new boys.
But Belhus will be hoping to counter that by bringing in some new players and drawing on a season’s experience of the league for the younger players.
And he joked: “I noticed that the team finishing fifth in Division Three (Benfleet) and Division Two (Hadleigh & Thundersley) last year have both gone on to win their leagues the following year, so hopefully that will be a good omen for us next year.”
And of life in the Essex Cricket League, Day added: “The team has thoroughly enjoyed their cricket and playing against different people who played the way our club always wanted to play: hard on the field and friendly of it.”
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