Stratford skipper Whelan eyeing title challenge

STRATFORD skipper Chris Whelan feels his side are more than capable of a Birmingham League Division Three title push this season.

The Panthers have enjoyed a solid start to the season and they moved up to third in the table following Saturday’s 18-run success over Pelsall at Swans Nest Lane.

With the title race seemingly wide open this year, Whelan, in his first summer as captain, feels his side have an genuine chance of claiming silverware this summer.

“Our ambition this season is to win the league,” said the former Worcestershire spinner.

“At the moment it’s a case of staying in the race, making sure you are there or thereabouts, then stepping up and making a challenge towards the end of the season.

“I know we are more than capable of winning this league. With everybody beating each other so far, nobody is going to run away with it.”

If Stratford are to mount a title challenge, they will need to steady their middle order, after it suffered another collapse on Saturday.

After positive start, led by Dexter Purser (33), the collapse arrived with only Whelan (39) and James Urquhart (34no) providing the only meaningful contributions as they stuttered to 183-9 on what looked a prime batting wicket.

At the halfway stage, the Panthers appeared to be around 60 runs light of where they needed to be.

Once again, Stratford started poorly with the ball and allowed the Pelsall batsmen to get off to a flying start.

They made the most of some wayward bowling and at 140-2 after 25 overs, they looked to have the game all but won.

However, some disciplined bowling from Urquhart (4-32) and Archie Walker (2-18) dragged Stratford back from the brink of defeat.

With some fine outfield catching, the Panthers managed to create enough pressure on the visitors, with Purser returning to blow away the tail with his hostile medium pacers.

“I’m pleased with the end result, but we probably didn’t cover ourselves in glory,” Whelan admitted.

“If I’m honest, we probably didn’t quite deserve to win the game and we dodged a bit of a bullet with them having a collapse in the end.

“In all the games we’ve played, we’ve had a middle order collapse and we’ve not quite got it right with the ball.

“Hopefully we can turn that round a little bit when I bring in Richard Smith in from the second team for this weekend. He’ll hopefully give us a bit more control with the ball.”

Stratford head to Shropshire this weekend to take on Newport.

Team: Dexter Purser, John Price, Declan Waddington, Charlie Blake, Chris Whelan, Josh Hickman, Alex Marney, Gareth Langman, Archie Walker, Richard Smith, Sam Douthwaite.

STRATFORD’S second string suffered a disappointing three-wicket defeat at Kidderminster on Saturday.

The Panthers won the toss and batted first, but the early loss of both openers left a job of slowly rebuilding the innings to Jim Harcourt (31) and Matt Dutton (29).

Despite this, the overs slowly slipped away from Stratford and only a well-struck 47 from Ed Cunnynghame could lead the visitors to an under par 181-9 from their 45 overs.

Kidderminster responded well and despite losing frequent wickets, they chased down the total with five overs to spare, winning by three wickets.

Richard Smith, Muhammed Dogar and Adam Joseph all claimed two wickets in the defeat.