Hucknall hitting their stride after third win in a row

They beat Plumtree away in a rain-affected game on Saturday and sit fifth ahead of this weekend's game at Radcliffe-on-Trent.

But skipper Sam Johnson warned the trip would be a big tester after Radcliffe-on-Trent’s recent victory over champions Cavaliers & Carrington.

“After Saturday the season will be exactly halfway through and being fifth is roughly where we want to be by the end of the season – around that top four or five,” said Johnson.

“If we can win on Saturday and be fifth or higher than I think that will represent a decent first half of the season and hopefully gives us some momentum to attack the second half of the season.

“We got into a bit of a rut earlier in the season and struggled.

“It was a case of everything that could go wrong did go wrong. But we have now won three in a row and are playing some confident cricket at the moment.

“But we are fully focused on the next game which is obviously a tough one against Radcliffe.

“They got off to a shaky start, but have signed a couple of players and now look a good side. I think it will be a really difficult test. They beat Cavaliers last time they played at home, so I think they represent a difficult afternoon for us.”

Last weekend Plumtree were bowled out for 101 in just 29-1 overs.

Kyle Simmonds made 48 and Saad Ashraf 26 while Dom Wheatley took 3-1 off 3.1 overs and there were two wickets each for Dan Blatherwick, Mathew Roberts, Connor Ramm and George Blatherwick.

Given a revised target of 100 from 43 overs Hucknall found themselves 40-3 before Nicol Loftie-Eaton (30 not out) and Sam Johnson (26 not out) saw them home on 103-3 in 25 overs, Zak Bess taking 2-17.

“It was a rain-affected first hour and a half or so,” said Johnson.

“We only got about two and a half overs in during that time. But it was uninterrupted after that and became a 43-over a side game.

“We bowled them out in 29 overs with a really clinical display.

“With Duckworth-Lewis and having bowled them out we got a revised target and set about it in pretty good fashion to be fair.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​