JAKE Wakelin was pleased to see Witham Cricket Club's players respond to his pre-match call-to-arms as they beat Worlington by five wickets in Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship division one.

The Witham skipper told the Times last week that they needed to bring individual performances together into more team displays to move themselves up the division one standings.

It has been an up and down start to the summer for Witham, who have finished second and third in division one in the last two years, with good results tempered by some disappointing ones.

Wakelin knew players had been performing, but wanted to see them bring that together and was pleased by what he saw at Worlington.

He said: "We had a few injuries again so we brought in a few from the seconds, but it was a real all-round team performance this time.

"There were young lads like Ollie Cooke and Will Smith who stepped up and we did very well against a good Worlington side.

"They don't have a stand-out player, they are just a team who I consider to be very good, but we kept them down to 190 on what is a small ground and then made quite light work of chasing it down.

"The ground fielding was good and the bowlers all bowled well to a plan and we then chased down their score with 15 overs to spare.

"I think we'd have made over 300 had we batted first as we had five wickets in hand as well.

"It was a good response to what was a disappointing result (against Mistley) the week before.

"We've been disappointed with how we've been playing over the last couple of weeks, so it was nice to right the wrongs with a good team performance."

Having won the toss and put Worlington in to bat, Witham's bowlers responded well by restricting their hosts to 190 from their 50 overs as debutants Cooke and Smith both took their first wickets for the senior team.

Smith finished with three for 43 and Cooke took two for 22 as both bowled their full compliment of ten overs, while Matt McKendry also picked up two wickets and Witham's batsmen then completed the job.

Wakelin top scored with 60 and another young player, Michael Godwin, also hit a half-century as the visitors got home with overs and wickets to spare.

The skipper now wants to see his team back that up with a strong display against division leaders Elmstead at the Park on Saturday and although he expects a number of senior players to be absent, he feels they have enough strength to do well.

He added: "I think there could be six players out for the game against Elmstead, but we know we have match winners throughout our team and we've seen players coming out of the seconds and do well.

"So there's no reason at all that we can't go out there looking for the win again.

"Consistency in availability has been something we've struggled with this year, but we do have match winners and we will be confident again."

Meanwhile, Wakelin impressed again when playing Minor Counties cricket for Suffolk last weekend.

Despite being on the losing side as Suffolk were knocked out of the Minor Counties Trophy in their quarter-final by reigning champions Berkshire, he took two top-order wickets to finish with eight from four games in this year's competition.