Steve Leach: Shropshire have to do better
Captain Steve Leach insists there is much more to come from Shropshire as the county target their first win of the season in the Unicorns Championship against Oxfordshire, writes Stuart Dunn.
Shropshire have opened the season with draws against Wales and Herefordshire to leave them sixth in the Western Division table, 14 points adrift of leaders Berkshire.
Leach now wants the county to play with more consistency as he looks forward to the three-day clash with fourth-placed Oxfordshire, which starts on Sunday at Shifnal, his home club ground.
Leach said: “I think we all realise that we’re operating slightly below what we’re capable of, which is disappointing. As far as I’m concerned, if we just nail what we do then that’s as much as I’m looking for as a captain.
“We’re two draws from two and we obviously would have liked to be in a better situation than we’re currently in.
“Everyone else also drew the first game of the season because of the weather. The last game against Herefordshire was on a very flat pitch, so we weren’t really going to force a result in that game given how it went, although there were periods where we could have been considerably better.
“There were some good individual performances overall and, while I don’t really like saying it, we showed glimpses of what we’re capable of. But we all know we need to be more consistent over three days.
“It is up to us to be better and we’re not making any excuses. We know that we’ve got to be better and hopefully we’ll see a bit of a reaction really in this next game against Oxfordshire and I’m looking for a positive result at Shifnal.”
Leach, who has fond memories of beating Oxfordshire by 56 runs at Aston Rowant in the Championship last season, knows plenty about Shropshire’s next opponents from his time studying in Oxford and playing for Oxford MCCU.
“They are a dangerous team and they’ve got some very good players,” he said. “We had a really good result there last year. It was a little bit of a contrived result because we lost the second day to rain, but we bowled and fielded really nicely in Oxfordshire’s second innings.
“I’ve got a couple of friends, former team-mates, that play for Oxfordshire, the likes of Lloyd Sabin, and he’s a very talented player. He’s certainly one to watch out, but we’re aware of him.”
