Whisker wealds bat with intent again

Goresbrook moved into 2nd place in Division at the halfway stage of the Mid-Essex season with a comfortable victory over bottom side South Weald at their picturesque Sandpit Lane ground. Once again skipper Kurt Whisker was the man around whom Goresbrook based their total, as after being inserted on a showery day, they started steadily on a good batting track.

Whisker and Richard Williamson added 100 for the 1st wicket before Williamson played around a straight one to be plumb lbw to medium pacer Chambers, but Whisker and Michael Rooke then batted fluently as the run rate started to accelerate. Whisker looked nailed on for a century at that point, but the introduction of Rob Hull, who got started to find some prodigious swing saw Whisker nick one to the keeper to depart for 81. With that innings, his 6th score of 50+ this season, Whisker passed 500 league runs in just his 7th innings, the left hander finding Mid Essex wickets and bowling very much to his liking.

After Whisker's dismissal, the remainder of the innings saw a succession of boundaries interspersed with wickets as the remaining Goresbrook batsmen looked to push on to maximum batting points and Weald never quite lost control with the ball, Hull picking up 5-76 and spinner Sharma bowling a tidy spell taking 2-46.

In reply, after a brief spell of drizzle at tea, the Weald batsmen found the Goresbrook attack a more difficult proposition. Shaun Ross tore in down the hill generating plenty of pace in a fine new ball spell of 2-17. From the other end the towering Richard Williams used the slope to generate some alarming bounce and he snapped up a couple of victims caught by what became a 5 man slip/gully cordon on his way to 2-22.

With the score at 22-4, Lingala and Hull counter attacked to take the score up to 65, but the introduction of Shane Barwick into the attack soon dampened their resistance, the outstanding 16 year old left arm spinner adding another 4 wickets to his 2014 tally at the cost of just 8 runs, as Weald were hustled out for 76.

Whisker was delighted with the performance on a day when Brook took advantage of Burnham’s defeat at Rayleigh to move back into the promotion places.

“Although South Weald are bottom, I didn’t see much difference between them and a number of other sides in this Division, they pegged us back well when it looked like we might push on to 300 and their fielding was as good as anybody’s we’ve come up against. If you look at some of the scores they’ve posted, batting looks to be their strength and I felt that bowling them out for 76 was probably our best all round bowling and fielding performance, we were aggressive with the new ball, caught everything and Shane Barwick was excellent again. We can go into the 2nd half of the season with a lot of confidence.”