Captain James Ralph has set his Shropshire cricket team a minimum target of three wins from the remaining five Championship matches to challenge for the Western Division title.Shropshire got their campaign in the three-day format off to the perfect start by wrapping up an eight-wicket victory over Herefordshire at Shifnal yesterday.
Cheshire and Berkshire also won their opening encounters against Wiltshire and Cornwall respectively, but Shropshire already have the upper hand over Devon, Dorset, Oxfordshire and Wales who saw their first round of games rained off last week.
“It’s a good start but we just have to keep pushing on,” said Ralph. “You don’t know how many wins it’s going to take to win the title but you need at least four to have a chance.
“It was very important we got the win in the first game or you are really under pressure to pretty much win every match after that.”
“It went to plan,” he added. “We got a bit lucky on the first morning because they gifted us three wickets just before lunch.
“But to bowl them out for 134 was a fantastic effort and I was pleased with the way everyone stuck at it when they batted second time around on Monday.
“That was a long day but they never got away from us. Steve (Taylor) got five and Andy (Gray) got four but Adam Shimmons and Jono Whitney bowled great spells as well.
“If I was being hyper-critical we should have got more runs in our first innings, but we have to be happy on the whole.”
Ralph and the selectors must now decide whether to keep faith with a winning team for the trip to Cornwall on Sunday week, or consider recalling players unavailable for the Herefordshire clash. They include the Foster brothers - Ed and Rob - Mark Robinson and Ted Baylis.
“We will sit down and have a look at the options,” Ralph added.
One Comment
Why not 5 wins? typical Ralph