The Essex senior team are back in the Premier Division clinching promotion by the narrowest of margins after the latest round of league matches were played over the last weekend in November. The successful team was made up of Umair Mauthoor (captain), Tony Halling, Ralph Pattison, Maliha Baig and Mabel Shute.

Essex finished level on points with Norfolk both teams winning six out of their seven matches the other game being a draw between the two rivals. They won promotion by virtue of set score finishing with a 53-17 aggregate compared to a 50-20 score for Norfolk. To underline just how close the two counties results were their results matched exactly except for the game against Middlesex 2 where Essex won 9-1 and Norfolk won 6-4. The Essex matches finished as follows:-

Essex 7 v Surrey 2nd 2, Essex 9 v Bucks 1, Essex 6 v Suffolk 4, Essex 9 v Middx 2nd 2, Essex 5 v Norfolk 5, Essex 9 v Sussex 2nd 1, Essex 8 v Berks. 2

The stand out result on the day was the 5-5 draw against Norfolk where Essex raced into a 4-1 lead only to see Norfolk slowly peg them back and then finally take the lead at 5-4. This left all the pressure on Ralph Pattison as he took on Chris Cockburn in the final game but, despite a close first set which he won16/14 and then losing the second 11/5, he went on to win the next two sets 11/5 11/7 and clinch the title. He was the only Essex player to win both his games in this match.

Umair Mauthoor and Maliha Baig were the best of our team over the weekend both winning 13 out of the 14 matches they played, whilst Tony Halling won 11 out of 14, and Mabel Shute and Ralph Pattison 8 out of 14.

An extraordinary team effort.