‘Rival counties will have to work hard to catch up’
Berkshire CCC: Lambert has guided Berks to two more honours in recent weeks
Tom Lambert, who has turned Berkshire into the most successful side in National/Minor Counties cricket history, claims other counties will need to work even harder than they usually do if they are to catch up.
The head coach has guided Berks to two more honours in recent weeks, the NCCA Trophy and the NCCA Championship, making it a remarkable 10 final wins in a six-season period.
Speaking after his side had beaten Lincolnshire on first innings totals (310 against 176) in a four-day final severely hit by rain at West Bromwich Dartmouth last week, Lambert said: “We need to do it again next year. We need to push on with this side. Other teams need to catch us and they will have to work harder to catch us.”
He revealed that Berks had to up their game this season after losing the Championship title to Oxfordshire last year.
“We had to work harder to catch Oxfordshire. We knew we had to do certain things, replace certain people and find a new way of doing things. That way has won us two trophies and we have got to go again.”
Lambert came up trumps in his appointment of a new captain for 2022.
It was never going to be easy following the incredible success the county enjoyed under the leadership of James Morris and then his brother Richard, but he certainly chose the right player in Dan Lincoln.
The wicket-keeper/batter had two years playing T20 cricket for Middlesex, appeared in a first-class match for Kent last year and has also played high-level non-league football as a goalkeeper with Dorking Wanderers being his current club.
“He was always a good player but he was a player that, if it wasn’t necessarily focused around him, we didn’t get the best out of him,”said Lambert in an interview with the NCCA’s Paul Bolton.
“So the focus on making him captain was: he is the most talented player I have ever seen, if we make it about him, we will get the best out of him.
“He thinks outside the box and brings things from outside our world of National Counties from the different professional worlds he has played in – football and also sharing dressing rooms with some international players.”
Former Slough, Henley and Datchet fast bowler Lambert continued: “We have worked really well together. Sometimes I have to temper some of his ideas because they are not necessarily what are needed at our level and sometimes you just let him run with it. But he was adamant when he came in that he wanted to do things his way and he wanted us to play a certain brand of cricket and we have all bought into it.
“In some ways, it has reinvigorated me as a coach because I have had to do things slightly differently and we have had to have a different way of how we go about things – how we warm up in a morning for example.”
It is their all-round professionalism that has been largely responsible for making Berkshire the most successful side in the country below the firstclass game.
Lincoln scored 932 runs this season, the third highest in the NCCA batting averages, while Euan Woods made a total of 659 runs.
Berkshire’s most successful bowler was spinner Luke Beaven, who claimed 44 wickets at an average of 18.39, earning him third place in the bowling averages. Woods was ninth in the list at 24.74 after taking 31 wickets. W Berkshire player Lauren Bell made her T20 debut for England Women when they defeated India by nine wickets at Chester-le-Street on Saturday. The 21-year-old fast-medium bowler conceded 25 runs in her only three overs.