Haverhill Cricket Club captain Ben Wilkins confident side will survive drop after promising performance against Braintree at Manor Road

Haverhill Cricket Club captain Ben Wilkins has revealed his side are confident they will survive the drop from Division Two of the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Cricket Championship this season, stating they are in a ‘stronger position’ than last term.

The Manor Road outfit have spent the majority of this campaign flirting with the relegation places, but a win at 10th-placed Woolpit II, their fourth of the season, followed by a narrow eight-run defeat against visiting promotion-chasing Braintree on Saturday, which they received nine points for, has seen them extend the gap between themselves and the bottom two to 35 points.

Last season, Wilkins’ outfit retained their Division Two status on the final day, but the skipper believes it will be a smoother journey to survival this time around.

“I think everyone’s fairly confident that we’ll be able to stay up,” he said.

“I think it’s always just a bit of a worry when you don’t win as many games as you’d like to, that you’re always constantly looking (over your shoulder) and asking other people to do you favours.

“I think this year we’re in a much stronger position than we were last year, so if we keep doing what we’re doing at the moment I think we’ll be absolutely fine.

“We looked to be sixth or seventh, in the top half of the second part of the league. I think the league is sort of split into two from looking at the table.

“If we can finish top of our little mini-league in seventh, I think we’ll be fine. We’ve got to play a couple of teams below us, so I think the opportunity is there to get there, we just need to do our best and win a couple of games.”

Despite belief that there could be a charge towards a mid-table finish at the start of the season, the Haverhill captain, who took over as skipper from Liam Botten towards the back-end of 2021, stated his ninth-placed side are where they should be in the standings.

After tomorrow’s clash at third-placed Felixstowe & Corinthians (1pm), three of Haverhill’s remaining five tests will come against sides in the bottom half of the table – which Wilkins believes there is the ‘potential of three wins’ from.

His side will be buoyed heading into their run-in by their performance at the weekend, as they proved they can rub shoulders with the league’s stronger opponents.

“I think we performed as well as we could have done, we just left our charge a little bit too late really,” said Wilkins.

“But to take nine points from them, when they’re so close to the top of the league, is quite a pleasing loss, if that’s such a thing.

“It just shows that when we’re playing at our best, we can compete with anyone in the league.

“I think sometimes we’ve let ourselves down a bit, but Saturday was good to see that we could stand toe-to-toe with one of the top-two teams in the league and give them a good game.”