AFTER a fortunate yet crucial win against Marlborough last weekend, Wootton Bassett captain Stef Tyrie is hopeful his team can go into this weekend’s trip to rock-bottom Spye Park in the WEPL Wiltshire Division with boosted confidence.

Saturday’s game could prove to be the perfect opportunity for Bassett to discover some much-needed self-belief, and Tyrie is adamant his team have still yet to find their top form.

“The win on Saturday did us a world of good and hopefully we can build on that,” he told the Advertiser.

“It’s a game that we probably should win. For the last few weeks we’ve been a bit nervy, so we need some good performances from both bat and ball.

“In all honesty I don’t want to be known as ‘the team that Spye beat’, because they are bottom of the league without a win.

“They’ve already lost seven of their games this season.”

Bassett have particularly struggled with the bat this season, but Tyrie was quick to defend his teammates and explained two possible reasons for their lack of form.

“It’s a bit of both really,” he said, referring to a lack of confidence and game time due to poor weather.

“We only hit 118 last weekend, which shows that we’re not on top form. We’ve had a few low scoring games this season but we just need to keep trying our best and try to pick up some form.”

Tyrie will be hoping that his top-order batsmen, who he rates highly, can replicate the form of Harvey Cummins, who has managed to hit some crucial runs for his team.

“I still think that on paper our top five or six batsmen are some of the best in the league. Unfortunately, with the exception of Harvey, they’ve all struggled to find form.

“It’s a good job that he (Harvey) has been playing so well for us otherwise we might really be in trouble.”

The Bassett captain insists that the team spirit in the dressing room is still good, and he believes that if his side don’t become too uptight they might start to see some more positive results - and achieve a respectable position at the end of the season: “We trained on Tuesday and just had a bit of fun really. We practiced on our fielding as well,” he said.

“We just tried to balance out the seriousness a little bit to help out the low confidence of some of our players.

“This is the second of the four big games which I have been speaking about of late, and if we can get some more wins under our belts we can still push for those top four places or so.”