Himley set for visit to London Road
By Stuart Dunn at the Shrewsbury Chronicle
Himley, Saturday’s visitors to London Road, may currently be bottom of the Birmingham League’s premier division, but Shrewsbury captain Rob Foster is expecting nothing but a tough game.
Foster is pleased how Shrewsbury have performed on the last two Saturdays with victory at Dorridge followed by an impressive winning draw at home to high-flying Berskwell, who included former Warwickshire and England man Darren Maddy in their side.
Now he has urged his team, who are up to sixth place, some 29 points clear of the relegation zone, to keep hitting the heights.
“We’ve started to play well,” said Foster. “That’s pleasing given some of the big players we’re missing at the moment.
“We expect another tough test against Himley and I think they’re in a bit of a false position when you look at some of the players in their side.
“Greg Wright, their captain, is scoring a lot of runs at the moment so we know that we’ll have to keep playing like we are.
“We want to finish as high in the table as possible, but we’re mindful that teams around us are also winning so we need to string a few more results together.”
Foster saluted the contribution of his brother Ed who has hit 90 and 87 at the top of the order in the last two matches as he’s once again underlined his class.
“When Ed plays well, we play well,” he said. “Some people might say he’s had a quiet season but he’s still in the top four or five run scorers in the league.”
Foster added it’s unlikely Shrewsbury will see much of influential all-rounder Joe Leach in the closing weeks of the campaign now that he’s a regular in the Worcestershire side.
“It’s great for Joe that he’s taken his chance so well,” stressed Foster. “Credit to him for that and it was nice to watch him on TV playing against Surrey last weekend, particularly getting Kevin Pietersen out.”
Meanwhile, teenage Shrewsbury all-rounder Ed Barnard returned to the international stage when he lined up for England under-19s in their drawn four-day game with South Africa at Cambridge ground Fenner’s.
Shrewsbury, without the unavailable Alex Blofield this weekend, are waiting to see if Dewi Jones, who recently made his first team debut for Glamorgan, will have recovered from the injury which meant he missed the Berkswell game.
Shrewsbury, from: E Foster, S Leach, R Foster (captain), T Cox, S Barnard, M Barnard, D Manders, E Green, C Morris, S Griffiths, D Jones, P Butler, G Hargrave, G Panayi.
