Captain Adam Wilson hopes his Brondesbury side can avenge their opening-day defeat to Hornsey and land a big blow in the fight for promotion on Saturday.

Brondesbury (pictured), who lost the 50-over home fixture by 102 runs back in May, went on to win nine games in a row in all competitions – but they then stumbled in the Middlesex County League, losing two successive Division Two fixtures before seeing last week’s scheduled clash with Highgate abandoned due to rain.

However, they returned to winning ways and beat Enfield by 152 runs on Saturday. Glenn Phillips (142) and Jordan Bethel (76) helped the hosts to post 310-5 and Anthony Wilkinson (3-11), Stephen Male (3-18) and Sam Smith (3-33) then took three wickets apiece to bowl the visitors out for 158.

That took Brondesbury up into third spot, and they now face a crunch clash away against second-placed Hornsey, who are 12 points ahead.

“We’re trying to approach every game with the mindset that it’s the most important match of the season, and we were able to do that against Enfield – but Saturday’s game carries some extra weight given that we’re only one win behind Hornsey,” said Wilson.

“We feel we have a lot to prove, having not performed as we would have hoped to in the first game of the season.

“We take a lot of confidence from last Saturday, as well as the fact that last season we were second from bottom at this stage and then went on a streak of six wins to finish third. There’s no reason why we can’t do that again this year and go one better to win promotion.

“A win on Saturday would go a long way towards our promotion hopes, but a defeat would certainly not rule us out. It’s a long season and we’re confident we can come out on top.

“We certainly learned a lot of lessons from our opening-day defeat, as you can see by the fact that we won nine games in a row following that.

“Hornsey are probably the strongest team we have played in the division so far this season – but we said the same thing this time last year and then went and beat them convincingly at their ground.

“We’re confident we can do the same again on Saturday, but we know it will be a tough battle – one we’re ready for and looking forward to.”

Brondesbury were beaten by Stanmore in the Middlesex Twenty20 Cup quarter-final on Tuesday evening.