The Broxhill Road club’s match on Saturday didn’t finish until late after a member of their team suffered a serious knee injury

Havering-atte-Bower recorded an emphatic victory at South Weald last weekend to move to the top of the T-Rippon Mid-Essex League Division Two, but captain Anthony Downes admitted emotions were mixed after the match.

After being made to bat first, the Broxhill Road club set the home side 335 to win, but saw their bowling efforts halted early into the second innings.

The match was delayed for a lengthy period of time after Havering’s Reece Beechey suffered a serious knee injury and Downes conceded it looks set to keep him out for a while.

He said: “In the second innings we were about eight overs in when Reece went over on his knee and extended it back the wrong way and got his foot caught in the ground, so he has busted his knee up.

“We don’t know at the moment whether it is ligament damage or if he has fractured the bottom of his femur, so the match was delayed for probably an hour and half at least waiting for an Ambulance to come and get him.

“Everyone is gutted for Reece because he has been out of the game for three years and has just come back and now we probably won’t see him again for a while, but all of us at the club wish him well and a speedy recovery.”

Before Reece Beechey’s injury, his brother Dan had showed his pedigree with the bat by scoring a century.

Vice-captain Ryan Hurley also struck a ton as Havering scored 334-4 from their 45 overs at South Weald.

Downes added: “It was a very good performance. It has always been a good batting track over there, so I had in my mind if we won the toss we would bat first and they won the toss and decided to put us.

“To get 334-4 was fantastic with a hundred from Dan Beechey and another from Ryan Hurley with others chipping in, so it was a really good score.”

Eventually Havering were able to finish their second innings after Reece Beechey had gone off to hospital.

Initially it was all about getting through the overs, but James Walker got on a roll and took 4-48 as South Weald were dismissed for 216 with 34 balls remaining.

“At one point we didn’t think we’d get the game finished with such a delay, but we managed to get back on and negotiated the bowlers around quickly with everyone running between overs to get into position,” said Downes.

“The slower bowlers rattled through their overs and we actually started to pick up wickets where they were looking to chase, so managed to bowl them out in around the 40th over, but it was about half eight to quarter-to-nine when we finished.”