Pratik Patel is eager for the new boys to impress again in Division Three and show their class in the Bertie Joel Trophy on Sunday

Crouch End have two games coming up this weekend and vice-captain Pratik Patel has urged the Middlesex County League Division Three new boys to remain grounded.

The Calthorpe club moved up to third last Saturday with a two-wicket success away to Wembley with skipper Hiren Desai starring.

He claimed 3-19 to dismiss the hosts for 150 and scored an unbeaten 28 to help Crouch End over the line to continue their fine start to 2018.

But ahead of entertaining Uxbridge on Saturday, Patel said: “We don’t know a lot about any of the teams in Division Three and it seems to be working in our favour.

“No one knows about us and we don’t know about them, so we just go out there and play cricket and it has gone well so far.

“After the win over Ealing, the next game was always going to be difficult and it would have been easy for us to be complacent and we were to an extent, but we managed to come through in the end.

“Now we need to go back to the drawing board, keep practising and working hard and our captain is great because he always reminds us not to concentrate too much on the result.

“He says if we bat, bowl and field to the best of our ability results should take care of themselves, so hopefully we can keep it up.”

Crouch End will be aiming to deliver in all facets of their game on Saturday at home to Uxbridge before they take part in the Bertie Joel Trophy on Sunday.

North Two make the trip to Calthorpe to take on Desai’s side and they will face a home team eager to impress.

“We have prioritised the league and the National Club Championship competition, but this tournament is a good opportunity for us to give some of the youngsters a chance,” said Crouch End vice-skipper Patel.

“We will still put out our strongest possible team, but include a few of our youth and see how they get on.”

A Crouch End win looked unlikely on Saturday, but 3-23 from Ryan Cunningham and the 3-19 of away skipper Desai saw Wembley collapse from 90-2 to 150 all out.

James Jenkins’ unbeaten 34, coupled with solid knocks from Amandeep Dhaliwal (30) and the captain (28*), helped see Crouch End triumph again.