6:00am Friday 13th July 2012
By Andy Warren
LECHLADE will be looking to avenge their opening game defeat at the hands of Wiltshire Division leaders Marshfield when the two sides meet again tomorrow.
The Manor Ground club’s first two games of the season against Wootton Bassett and Devizes were washed out, and when their season did finally get going they suffered a five wicket defeat to the Broadleys side.
Since then Lechlade have performed well to hold third place in the league table, and a victory this weekend could close the gap on the leaders and Great Bedwyn in second place.
Captain Paul Gooding said: “It’s a big game for both teams and I am confident we can beat them at the weekend.
“A win will put us in the driving seat for the race for promotion and make things very difficult for them.
“We have only lost one game so far this season and that was against Marshfield in our opening game.
“They had played the week before and were up and running and they caught us cold in our first game of the season. We’ve gone on to win our next four games convincingly and are now only six points behind them.”
The club will keep faith with the same 11 players who played against Great Bedwyn two weeks ago, and player-coach Luke Sellers is confident of success.
“We have no injury worries and everyone is available for Saturday so we are able to field our strongest side, and with only five games played so far everyone is very keen to play and training has been very competitive as a consequence.
“Team moral and spirit is very high and we are very keen to get a result against Marshfield and level the seasons score between us.”
Like all of the county’s clubs, Lechlade have suffered with the weather, but groundsman Nigel Pearce is confident of getting the game on despite heavy rain.
“We’ve had a lot of rain in the last ten days and the ground is saturated,” he said. “The water table is quite high here as we are so close to the river and this has hampered the drainage of the ground.
“The lads have been here most nights working on the ground and I am fairly confident that so long as there is no further substantial rain fall before Saturday that we will get the game on.”
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