Northern Counties' stand-in skipper Green happy with winner-take-all scenario
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Northern Counties are one win away from being crowned North of Scotland’s cricket champions.
They face Forres in a winner-take-all match that was originally supposed to be played two weeks ago, only to be postponed.
Such a big occasion has the potential to play on the minds of players, knowing that any mistake could cost their side the title, but Counties’ stand-in captain Alex Green is trying to play down the pressure involved.
Instead, he sees it as a good thing that there is no uncertainty about what the end result means.
“It depends on how you look at it,” he reasoned.
“We’re going to try and treat it like any other game and take that pressure away from us.
“We believe that if we play our best cricket, we will win the game and the title, which is quite a nice luxury to have.
“In previous years I don’t think it has ever come down to the two teams, first and second, facing each other and whoever wins is going to win the league.
“I don’t think it has happened before, but I could be wrong.
“It’s quite a nice thing to know that when the game is finished we don’t need to look for other results to see who has won.”
Green is skipper in the absence of usual captain and vice-captain Shaun Thomas and Will Ford.
Those are two influential players to be missing in a potentially season-defining match, but Green is confident that whoever is selected to play will be good enough to see Counties over the line.
“Besides Shaun and Will, we’ve got one of the strongest teams we can put out,” Green insisted.
“Obviously missing your captain and vice-captain is a massive blow, but as a club we feel that we’ve got a strong enough pool of players, and experienced players, to overcome that.
“We won’t be using it as an excuse if we don’t come away with a win.
“We might be missing two or three others potentially, but the numbers that we’ve got at the moment – we haven’t made the final call on the squad, but it’s looking pretty strong.
“I’m confident that we can go and get the win if we all play well.”
