Wedge: Neutrals will be on our side (From Dudley News)

Wedge: Neutrals will be on our side

11:00am Thursday 2nd August 2012 in Sport

STUART Wedge claims neutrals will be cheering on Himley in their top-of-the-table showdown with Walsall this Saturday (noon start).

The Birmingham League Premier Division’s top-two face-off at Stourbridge Road, with the second-placed hosts eager to close the 30-point gap on the leaders.

Skipper Wedge believes a Himley win can place a seed of doubt in the confidence of a Walsall side that will lose influential overseas star Christiaan Jonker in the closing weeks of the season.

And he says the rest of the chasing pack will be hoping for a home win.

He said: “We are looking to disrupt their victory procession.

“If we can get a positive result it will pull them back towards us and I know (third-placed) Berkswell want us to win.

“You have to look at both sides of the coin. “If we were to lose on Saturday it would put us 50 points behind and that would be a big ask.

“But they are set to lose Jonker for the last four games and if we start to close the gap, it may play on their minds a little bit.

“I can’t really predict what’s going to happen but I think it’s going to be a very good game of cricket.”

Himley overtook Berkswell after gaining a winning draw away at The Lant last Saturday, in a game which saw more than 600 runs scored.

Batting first, the visitors racked up 312-7 from their 55 overs, Greg Wright and Nathan Round both scoring 88, while Rajat Bhatia chipped in with 61.

After initially falling to 77-4, the hosts also began to find the deck to their liking as Thomas Milnes (122) and Dominic Ostler (114) put on a mammoth 216 for the fifth wicket. Some late wickets for Himley saw the home side eventually restricted to 299-8.

Wedge said: “There was a short boundary on one side so we thought there might be a few runs and we were racing along and it was marvellous.

“When it came to bowling it was a different story. “We knew the partnership between Milnes and Ostler was the crucial one and in fairness to them it was the best batting I have seen against us for a long time.”