Harpenden skipper tells his side to take their chances

HARPENDEN captain Ben Frazer believes his young side will have learnt a valuable lesson from Saturday’s game with Radlett.

Frazer’s opposite number Shane Burger was dropped at slip by Will Bates on 22 and the Radlett man made the home side pay going on to score an unbeaten 115 and Frazer felt this incident showed his side has to take its chances.

“It was a superb knock, one of the best you’ll see,” said Frazer of Burger’s innings. “We dropped him and you can’t drop a player like that really, he’ll make you pay. I think that’s quite a good lesson for the boys really, in this league you’ve got to take your chances against the best players otherwise they’ll make you pay and he did.

“If we’d got him I don’t think they’d have reached 275 but all credit to him it was a fantastic knock.”

Despite being five down when the rain stopped the game Frazer still felt confident his side could have got something from the game with plenty of batting still to come.

“I think before the rain we were still in the game and with a chance with Fozzie (Pat Foster), Bennett-Baggs and DK (David Keenleyside) still to come. As soon as the rain came and we started to lose overs there was no advantage to us to get back out there.

“It was good disciplined bowling from us on a flat wicket. We thought anything around 275 we’d be happy to chase and it’s just unfortunate the rain came but we stuck at it.

“Our game plan was to stack it with batting and try and chase on a flat wicket but the rain came and we couldn’t get the chance to do it.”

Harpenden head to Oxford this weekend looking for their second win of the campaign and Frazer says his side will make the trip full of confidence.

“We’re off to Oxford, they’re notoriously a good side and they’re doing alright this year,” said Frazer.

“Again it’s another challenge for us. We’re holding our own at the moment we’ll go to Oxford full of confidence. We bowled well today and as I’ve said we fancied our chances before the rain came so we’ll go there and we’ll try to win.”