WITHAM Cricket Club captain Jake Wakelin says being top of the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship at this stage of the division one campaign changes nothing for his title-chasing side.

Wakelin was pleased to see his team go to the summit after a one-sided nine-wicket win at Mistley extended their winning run to six games and they will host Maldon on Saturday feeling confident.

However, Wakelin knows his side's lead at the top is slender, with the second and third-placed sides - Coggeshall and Wivenhoe - just a point behind and he wants his players to change nothing now they are the ones to catch rather than being the chasers.

The Witham captain said: "Being top is nice because we've been the ones chasing at the top in previous years and we now know that if we keep winning then we'll be champions.

"But it doesn't make any difference to how we approach things.

"Some people may add a little extra against you because they want to beat the team at the top, but that's not in our heads.

"There's still a long way to go and anyone can beat anyone as results have shown already this year.

"I'd still rather be top than bottom and it's a nice position that we're in, but we can't take anyone fro granted as there are some good teams in this league. "There are three or four hunting us down and we just have to continue playing what I think has been superb cricket this year.

"We've bowled teams out for less than 100 three times this season, won by eight or more wickets on five occasions and we're on a six-game winning run, which - barring the one against Woolpit - have all been pretty convincing.

"It's just a great team to be involved with at the moment."

Wakelin's buoyant team will face Maldon on Saturday looking to extend their winning run further and, while it's not an unwelcome dilemma to have, the Witham skipper is anticipating some headaches over their team selection.

He added: "We should have Billy Moulton-Day and Shaun Bragg back available this week so selection is going to be very difficult. "I think you could throw 14 names in a hat, draw 11 out and we'd have a very strong side, so it's going to be tough selecting a side."

Wakelin knows that whatever side does feature for the firsts on Saturday will be tough to beat, but his side's current run of form is not without an element of concern as their dominance in recent games has curtailed time in the middle for much of the Witham batting line-up.

"Barring the Woolpit game, we have won the last four or five very convincingly and there is a bit of a worry there," said Wakelin.

"I'm not worried that anyone will get complacent, but it's just that some of our batsmen haven't been getting any time in the middle because of how we've been bowling sides out and then chasing them down for the loss of one or two wickets.

"That's the main reason that we don't have any of our batsmen in the top run scoring chart. "It's because we've bowled teams out for less than 100 three times and for 114 another time, so that's four games where we've had to chase pretty small totals."