Skipper discusses strong display of youngsters after defeat to Southend
Upminster captain John Curtis praised two of his 17-years-old despite seeing his side suffer a 57-run defeat away to Essex League Division One promotion chasing Southend-on-Sea last weekend.
The visitors lost the toss and fielded first, but responded with a strong performance to help dismiss the home team for 223.
Will Chuter led the way with the ball putting in a fantastic display to take 5-33 from 8.1 overs to give Upminster a sniff of victory.
But only Frank Hazel was able to score over 26 with eight batsman all getting out for single figure scores.
Hazel stuck around, though, and hit an impressive 79. It was in vein, however, as only Shafiq Rahman could support him and Upminster were bowled out for 166.
Curtis said: “I think Southend’s batting was below par, but we have bowled better than that in the past and in fact our fielding was really good.
“Will bowled really well and mopped three up at the end. He has actually bowled better I think, but that is the way it goes sometimes.
“He bowled five others first up with me and got both openers and then come back at the end and got three wickets in three overs. At 17-years-old it was a fantastic effort.
“We didn’t get off to a great start in reply, but I had Frank up from the second team. He has played a bit for us this season and also the seconds, but he played and scored 79.
“He is also 17-years-old and in the same age group as Will, so they both did really good for us.”
Unfortunately it wasn’t good enough to earn Upminster a victory and the loss has seen them drop into the bottom two of the league.
Curtis isn’t too concerned about relegation just yet, though, and knows the league is extremely tight.
He added: “I feel like we are good enough to stay up and we aren’t playing badly, we are just losing games because of poor spells.
“It will be difficult this week against Shenfield and missing players, but the guys that will come in have an opportunity.
“The league is so tight, barring the top three, everyone is really close together and you can literally go from fourth to ninth in the space of one week.”
Upminster will be hoping they can get a few more wins on the board soon.
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