CHESHAM CC captain Ollie Turner believes his team can thrive in the middle part of the season after ending the first burst of 50-over matches in third place in Division Two of the Home Counties League.

They beat Cove by eight wickets last weekend to jump up the table, and Turner has backed his bowlers to continue that momentum during the next nine weeks.

He said: “The bowling has been good all season. We’ve bowled well all the way through. We’ve got a good seam attack and we think we’ve got two of the best spinners around.

“This weekend is the first game in the longer format and if you’ve got four or five good bowlers then you’ve got a chance.

“We played some good cricket in the win/lose/draw format last season so hopefully we can carry that on.”

Chesham entertain Dinton on Saturday and go into the match in good form after a convincing victory over the bottom side last weekend.

Turner won the toss and inserted their hosts, and his bowlers repaid his trust with James Day and Jack Maciver both making early breakthroughs.

And after the seamers had kept a lid on things Matthew Rance came on to wreak further havoc with figures of 3-18 from nine overs.

With Asad Rehman also taking a couple of scalps, Cove were back in the hutch with just 128 on the board and that proved no trouble for the Chesham top order.

Opener Andy Goddard was the mainstay of the chase, finishing unbeaten on 59 with Day not out on 34 at the other end when Chesham crossed the line in the 36th over.

Turner said: “We played well. Everything came together and after the disappointment of the last week it was important to get a win again.

“We can certainly be pleased with where we are in the table now. We feel we’ve underperformed in a couple of games but we feel we can definitely compete at this level.”