Roman Walker 'very proud' of his historic bowling figures

Roman Walker played a starring role for Shropshire against one of his former teams as he helped the county complete a six-victory over Wales in the NCCA Championship.

Walker, the former Leicestershire and Glamorgan all-rounder, bowled Shropshire into a strong position on the opening day by taking eight Wales first innings wickets. He then followed it up by being one of four Shropshire players to hit a half-century as the hosts took control of the game at the halfway stage.

Inspired by a century from Rhodri Lewis, Wales fought back well when they batted for a second time to take the match deep into the third and final day at Bridgnorth.

Shropshire were eventually set a target of 170, and half centuries from Joe Johnson and Seb Scott, his second of the match, helped guide them home and secure 24 Western Division Two points.

"They're always knee-knockers, aren't they, that's the thing," smiled Walker, referring to Shropshire's run chase on the final afternoon. "I think we did really well. Joe Johnson put his foot down when he came in and fought fire with fire, especially with the short ball plan that they came with.

“Then it was a brilliant innings from Seb Scott. I think it was a 27-ball 50. That just put us well ahead of the game. Those two contributions in terms of that chase were absolutely perfect and exactly what we needed.”

On Shropshire delivering their first three-day win of the season after impressively bouncing back from defeat in their Championship opener at Cornwall earlier this month, Walker added: "The lads are very, very happy, which is good to see as a team."

Wales regularly lost wickets on the opening day as they were bowled out for 166 inside 63 overs, despite useful contributions from Sami Khan (43) and skipper Cameron Herring (36), with Walker inflicting much of the damage as he claimed an excellent 8-44 from 18.5 overs.

Has he had better bowling figures? "No, that goes up to the top of the list for me," he said. "I'm very proud of it, very happy about that, but I think it's mostly that we managed to get the lads off the field prematurely and get our feet up for a little bit! But, yes, I'm really happy with that performance.”

Walker's are the fifth best by a Shropshire bowler in Championship cricket dating back to 1957, only bettered by Andy Gray's 9-56 against Cornwall in 2008, Joe Stanley's 9-83 against Wiltshire in 2023, DS de Silva's 8-41 against Cheshire in 1982 and Geoff Othen's 8-42 against Bedfordshire in 1969.

He was quick to ask Kevin O'Connell, Shropshire's scorer, where his opening day efforts placed him on the county's all-time list: "Well, I did ask Kev the question," added Walker.

"He's got all the stats. I thought I may be up the top. They're half decent figures at the end of the day, and he came back and I was fifth on the list. I thought they've had some good performances then in the past! Well, there we go, I'll have to try again.”