Wanstead & Snaresbrook captain Joe Ellis-Grewal believes his side are underdogs as they head into a clash with Hornchurch.

The Herons make the short trip to Harrow Lodge Park on Saturday as they look to pile the pressure on one of their Hamro Foundation Essex League title rivals.

“We’ll obviously be looking to put in a strong performance and hopefully they’re going to end up with as few points as possible,” said Ellis-Grewal.

“We’re looking forward to playing against them, they’re a great side, and they’re probably the favourites to win the league so we know we have to play well.

“We’re going into it as second favourites I guess but hopefully we can give them a run for their money.”

Romford Recorder: Z Shahzad of Wanstead celebrates taking the wicket of J Hebron during Wanstead and Snaresbrook CC (fielding) vs Brentwood CC, Hamro Foundation Essex League Cricket at Overton Drive on 19th June 2021Z Shahzad of Wanstead celebrates taking the wicket of J Hebron during Wanstead and Snaresbrook CC (fielding) vs Brentwood CC, Hamro Foundation Essex League Cricket at Overton Drive on 19th June 2021 (Image: ©TGS Photo tgsphoto.co.uk +44 1376 553468)

It was a three-wicket defeat to Colchester last time out for Wanstead although they did pick up 11 points from the match at Castle Park.

The Herons were put into bat and scored 268-8 thanks to Tom Simmons (51), Robin Das (71) and Eshun Kalley (59) among others.

But the hosts reached their target with Simon Fernandes (105) impressing as the wickets were shared around the Herons bowlers.

“It was a strange game and we could have easily shut out Colchester probably at any point that we wanted to in the game," added Ellis-Grewal.

“We declared with another nine overs to go in our innings and we probably could have got 320 or 330 if we wanted to, but we knew then that we’d have no chance of winning the game.

“We gave them 60 to 65 overs in the end, which was less than four an over to get our total, and they batted really well.

“We could have put fielders out and stopped them scoring runs, but we kept attacking, we wanted to get those 10 wickets and we felt that was the best way of getting them.

“Credit to Colchester, they batted well, but I feel like it was pretty brave attacking play from us and we did everything that we could to get the win but unfortunately that meant sacrificing the result at the end of the game.”

He added: “We still took 11 points out of the game, I don’t know if we would have taken 11 points if we'd scored 320 as they would have just blocked from ball one.

“We’re pretty happy with our points haul and a couple of other results went our way so we gained points essentially.”