Brentwood’s stand-in captain Guy Balmford says bouncing back to winning ways is crucial after falling to their first defeat of the campaign last weekend.

Romford Recorder: Jack Levy of Brentwood during Harold Wood CC (batting) vs Brentwood CC, Essex Cricket League Cricket at Harold Wood Park on 8th August 2020Jack Levy of Brentwood during Harold Wood CC (batting) vs Brentwood CC, Essex Cricket League Cricket at Harold Wood Park on 8th August 2020 (Image: ©TGS Photo tgsphoto.co.uk +44 1376 553468)

The 2019 champions welcome local rivals Billericay to the Old County Ground on Saturday with hopefully a full-strength squad once again as they look to regain top spot in the Shepherd Neame Essex League Gooch group.

Balmford knows they must perform better to ensure a result and pull them back into the mix at the top after a 32-run defeat to new boys Harold Wood on Saturday.

“Bouncing back will obviously be key, the league is pretty tight, I think the top couple of teams are all within 10 points of each other so we’ll have to get on the winning bandwagon once again,” he said.

“We’ll have to put that loss to one side as a blip, but Billericay are a good side, they’ve got a few good players.

“Paul Walter may be playing if he’s not in the county squad so it’s another tricky opponent but one we feel we can beat.”

Harold Wood scored 173-9 at the weekend before Brentwood were bowled out for 141 despite Eddie Ballard scoring 79 runs.

“It was a difficult one to take after we’ve been on such a good run, we were obviously missing a few of the senior players, Aaron West was away, Charlie Griffiths was away and Ian Belchamber is injured at the moment,” added Balmford.

“We were missing some experience, but it’s one of those things we’ll take away the lessons that need to be learnt from it and move on.”

Balmford admitted it was tough conditions on the pitch and hard to score runs on the day, adding: “Connor Limrick and Ben Allison opened up really well. The pitch with the new ball in both innings were very difficult to face and had an inconsistent bounce, which made it tough to score.

“Once the new ball had lost it’s shine it got flatter and what they managed to do better than us was capitalise on that, their captain Craig Perrin played a really good innings to steer them through them middle orders which saw them home.

“With our own batting, Eddie once again proved himself to be a very good player, what we needed to do was support him through the innings, but unfortunately no one was able to do that.

“That’s what we’ll need to learn from and maybe adapt our game when we play away especially at these grounds we’re not familiar with.”