Captain’s Blog: 1st XI

The start of the cricket season is always very exciting. This year, more than ever, feels really, really special with the beginning of the season pretty much coinciding with the end of lockdown and the club starting to build an incredible new pavilion.

The team are very much looking forward to playing in the inaugural Herts and Essex Border League after its successful trial friendly run last year. We performed reasonably well in spite of us missing crucial team members. This gave us the opportunity to bring through a number of youth players who did exceptionally well with both the bat, ball and in the field.

We have a very special team spirit partly brought about by the fact that almost all of the current team have come through the clubs youth system. Over the past few years, Nazeing has been particularly good in developing quality bowlers and giving them the opportunity to progress through the Saturday league teams. Special mentions of these include Josh Stevens as a seam bowler, and Jamie Stevens and Paul Quinn as exceptional spin bowlers - both of whom have achieved the highest wicket taker award in the top division in recent seasons.

In addition to welcoming back injured players like Josh Eke, who was tremendous with the bat prior to his injury and consequent absence last season, I’m very much looking forward to captaining a young off-spinner who has come through from the second team. He solidified his place in the team last season and I have no doubt that we will see at least the same development in him that we have seen in Josh, Jamie and Paul.

I also feel compelled to mention Andrew Humphrey’s contributions. Since Joining from Ilford Catholic, his batting statistics have been fantastic and I’m sure that his form will continue for many years to come.

There’s so much to be excited about and I am very much looking forward to seeing new and existing members at The Common very soon.

Dan Reese - 1st XI Captain