Buckinghamshire skipper Tom Hampton has looked back on his side’s NCCA Championship, Eastern Division 2 draw with Bedfordshire.
Hampton was pleased with how his team performed at the beautiful venue of Bedford School.
I felt the performance over the 3 days was a really good start to the competition. We had four guys making their Championship debuts and the average age of the side was definitely younger than it has been over the last couple of years. So it was really pleasing to see the younger guys step up and put in some really good performances.
We had to work really hard with the bat and AJ led the way brilliantly in the first innings and was backed up by a superb innings by Ross (Richardson) and Crofty (Stephen Croft) in the second.
To put us in a position to win the game the batsmen did a great job, unfortunately we weren’t able to quite match the levels with the ball from the first innings and dropped a couple of chances, which unfortunately cost us the win.
A younger looking side took to the field for Buckinghamshire but their skipper was happy with the individual as well as the overall team display.
The Academy players came into the side and performed brilliantly, and every one of them should be pleased with their performance. It’s going to be great to see these guys develop over the next few years. The real stand outs over the three days were AJ’s (Woodland) first innings 100, Cam’s (Parsons) bowling throughout as well as Ross’s second innings performance.
AJ Woodland – Celebrates his 100 for Buckinghamshire against Bedfordshire at Bedford Shool.
The fixture list sees all counties miss a round of Championship games due to five sides being in each division. Buckinghamshire have this game, the second one, off. The Academy players have certainly caused some positive problems ahead of next weekend’s match.
It’s a shame we have a few weeks off, but that allows guys to go back to their clubs and put in performances, we have a really strong squad and I’m sure there will be a few discussions before selection for the Hertfordshire game.
It’s very obvious all players are glad to be back, with Hampton reflecting this.
The lads absolutely loved being back in whites, playing the long format game and I am so pleased that we have the chance to play Championship cricket this year. It was great to see so many supporters at the Beds game and hopefully we manage to keep attracting some support and continue to put in some solid performances.
