Jake Wakelin is delighted that he is getting so many contenders for Witham Cricket Club’s man-of-the-match honours each week in the opening spell of the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship season.

Witham are sitting second in the division one table following their 131-run win in their local derby at Braintree last weekend and they head into today’s home game against Coggeshall with four wins from the four games they have played this season.

The victory at Braintree was underpinned by an impressive 83 from Kaan Hawes that set up Witham’s match-winning total of 270 for nine, but their bowlers then stepped up to the plate to deliver the victory as the hosts were skittled out for 139.

And skipper Wakelin is pleased that so many members of his team are contributing to their success.

He said: “We felt 270 was a good score at the halfway stage, but we knew it was one on a small ground where if a batsman got in, then they could chase it down.

“However, the pitch wasn’t quite as good as we all thought and it had been left greener, perhaps to minimise the effectiveness of our spinners and we were able to keep their scoring down.

“We have an all-round attack and the seamers had the bases covered.

“It showed that 270 was a good score as it turned out.

“Kaan (Hawes) set it out brilliantly with a knock of 83 and did the job perfectly fro the team after we had lost early wickets.

“He and Jim Suett had a vital partnership, but it was Kaan’s knock that really held the innings together before Richard Green came in and did what Richard Green does by hitting late runs.

“It was quite a difficult pitch that was pretty green and Kaan’s application was superb, just like it was the week before.

“Without him, we’d have lost the last two weeks.

“With the ball, we kept it tight, with Matt McKendry and Adrian Chad having a good early spell and then the spinners were able to come on and keep squeezing it.

“I took a few myself and Braggy (Carl Bragg) got three as well and Jack (Sambrook) also bowled well without being rewarded with wickets.

“It was just a good all-round performance again.

“To be honest, you could pick four or five contenders for man-of-the-match in every game so far and that list is changing every week.

“It’s not the same people who are doing the job for us.”

It has been a superb start for Witham, but Wakelin insists neither he nor his team-mates are getting carried away by their early success.

“We’ve started as well as we possibly could really,” he added.

“I don’t think we’ve been at our absolute best the last two weeks, but we’ve won four out of four and you can’t ask for more than that.

“However, we’re not getting ahead of ourselves and we’re just taking each game as it comes.

“That will be the same for Coggeshall (on Saturday) because we know they’ll be up for it.

“We can’t get ahead of ourselves.

“Wivenhoe and Mildenhall have also had good starts and we still haven’t played either of them so we just have to keep playing our own cricket and enjoying what we’re doing.

“We’ll never take anyone for granted so we have to keep practising hard like we did before the Braintree game.

“Kaan’s knock in that game is testament to the hard work that he puts in and it’s the same throughout our team, however, it’s not just the 11 on a Saturday, we have players pushing to come through from the seconds as well.

“Michael Glynn and Michael Godwin are two young players who are pressing for places in the first team and that just shows how healthy the club is at the moment.”