Harold Wood captain laments “worst performance”
Harold Wood players celebrate a wicket (pic: Gavin Ellis/TGSPHOTO) - Credit: Gavin Ellis/TGSPHOTO
Clarke wants response after loss to Shenfield
Harold Wood captain Tom Clarke called his side’s defeat against Shenfield their “worst performance of the season”.
Wood slipped to a third successive Essex League Premier Division loss, having been bowled out for 168 in just 36.1 overs.
Mahruf Chowdhury (45) and Craig Sampson (44) were their best contributors with the bat, but Shenfield only needed 32 overs to reach their target, despite Chowdhury (3-33) completing a good all-round performance.
A disappointed Clarke said: “We didn’t play very well on Saturday. It was the worst performance of the season.
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“From the hard work the week before against Wanstead, where people really put in a big effort, people didn’t have quite the same fight for it this week.
“Obviously you leave time so that you can bat the 64 overs, so to be all out in 38 overs was disappointing. With the ball it’s been the story of the season really.
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“Whatever we’ve done with the bat, the bowlers have sometimes got the guys out of jail and when we had them for 100-5 it looked like we could do that again, but we just never had enough runs with the ball.”
Defeats against Wanstead and Loughton had preceded the loss to Shenfield and have hampered Wood’s second half of the season, following successive promotions to the top flight.
A victory against Ilford tomorrow (Saturday) would settle Clarke’s nerves, though, and ensure his aspirations would be close to being realised.
“At the start of the season the plan was just to stay up and that is still the plan,” he added.
“We’re mid-table at the moment, but we’ve lost three in a row, which is annoying as we got off to a really good start.
“We just need to turn around our form a bit and try and have a good performance this Saturday.”
Nadeem Sohail (60), Chris Bennett (48) Glen Wooding (77 not out) helped Wood’s seconds declare on 238-3 from 45 overs against Stanford.
But despite good spells from of Billy Mortimer (4-25) and Kevin Gibson (3-26) they were frustrated as Stanford’s tailenders held on for a draw.
The thirds lost by six wickets against Wanstead fourths after being dismissed for 194, while the fourths dug in to avoid defeat against Woodford Green thirds.
Chasing 224, Wood closed on 161-9 after Steve Faram (40) and Tony Carman (48) led the way with the bat.
The fifths dismissed their Belhus rivals for 146, as Amir Salim and Keith Donovan took four wickets apiece, before Chris Low (52 not out) steered them to a six-wicket win.
