Park captain disappointed to miss out after enthralling clash with Leigh

Jamal Francis has revealed Gidea Park were gutted to lose a thrilling contest at Leigh-on-Sea by just 13 runs in the Essex Division Two

The hosts elected to bat after winning the toss and progressed to a score of 261-9 from their 50 overs.

And despite looking on course at several stages in their innings, Park saw their winning run come to an end but Francis says the team are still showing signs of progression.

“We came close to winning and I think that’s why we’re disappointed but we didn’t help ourselves at times,” said the team’s skipper.

“We’ve all had a chat and learnt from where we went wrong. We’re getting closer to where we want to be.”

The efforts of Shawn Findlay (3-19) and Joe Pegram (3-49) in particular checked any momentum Leigh were hoping to build up.

And Francis was pleased to keep the hosts to a score he thought was chaseable, adding: “I thought par on that pitch was about 250. It was a quick outfield and the pitch was good. It was about bowling in the right areas.

“If you look at their last few overs, you could probably count their boundaries on one hand. We did well at the end and picked up wickets.”

Park’s response started badly with a duck from Matthew Tarr but fellow opener George Rogers top scored with 70 to get the visitors back on track.

And while there were other batsmen who played solid innings, no other GPR was able to reach a half century, something which Francis believes attributed to their downfall.

“We were always around the run rate and we were batting well until drinks but then we started to lose wickets often.

“Guys would score about 30 or 40 but we needed those scores to be turned into 60. It would have been nice to have won some more points than we did but we’ll move on.”