Hornchurch CC confirm the return of Adeel Malik ahead of next season

The Harrow Lodge outfit finished the season fifth in the Essex Premier Division, much to the disappointment of the skipper.

But he is already looking to next season and knows they will have to make a few tweaks in order to improve.

“We’ll enjoy the break, we’ll have a few ins and outs, see which direction we want to go in and then go from there really,” Gordon said.

“Adeel has been a great signing to be fair, he’s a great lad, and he said he’s staying next year so that’s a huge positive.

“Hopefully we can build on that and add a couple more players in order to challenge for the title again next year.”

On the final day of the 2021 season, Hornchurch suffered a five-wicket defeat to Hadleigh and Thundersley, which saw them finish fifth - one place below Hadleigh.

They won the toss and elected to bat first, where they posted a score of 219 all out thanks to Ahsan Freed (41), Adeel Malik (95), and a few others chipping in around those two batsmen.

Hadleigh chased down the score in reply with a total of 223-5 with Darius Vapiwala (63) and Oliver Smith (83 not out) top scoring for the hosts at John Burrows Park – despite a decent bowling effort from Hornchurch’s Malik (2-36).

“It has been disappointing, it’s been very tough to watch to be fair, we’ve got a lot of twos players playing up with the first team,” Gordon said.

“It’s such a big jump and that’s where we’ve lost a lot of players during the season, but to be fair with the problems we’ve had this season, it’s not the worst finish.

“We now want to build for next season and get everyone back fit.”

The club’s under-11s brought some success as they won double by winning the Havering under-11s League and the Haydn Davies Plate this season.

Hornchurch CC under-11s won the double (Image: Hornchurch CC)

The club said: “A fantastic achievement from a great bunch of boys.”