North Middlesex captain James Parslow insists it has been exciting season despite being short and suffering cup final heartbreak in their final match of the season.

Parslow’s men finished sixth in the Middlesex League Premier Division and lost by nine runs in the cup final to Ealing at the weekend.

But they must look at positives insists the skipper after the rise of many young talents through the ranks, including two playing more regularly for Middlesex this season.

“It’s been a different season, off the field it’s never been better, we’ve really come together as a club,” said Parslow. “The social side of things has been brilliant, mainly run by Nick Friend, who has been absolutely amazing.

“It’s also been great to see some boys come through and put on some really good performances.

“Max Harris has been one of the stand-outs this year, only just turned 18 and bowling 80mph-plus, and getting really good batsmen out.

“Conor Nurse come through three games in a row getting lots of runs and being one of our main batsman, Max Cracknell has done really well with the gloves, and got some good runs too. It’s been an exciting year, just a shame it has to come to an end.

“There has been so many thrills, especially with Luke Hollman and Joe Cracknell playing for Middlesex. The weeks have flown by and it’s like they say, they go fast when you’re having fun!”

In the cup final, North Midd restricted Ealing to 248-5 but could only manage 239-7 in reply with Parslow (62) and youngster Conor Nurse (43) leading the way.

“We lost, but those are the games you play cricket for, the close ones, especially in a final against a proper good club like Ealing,” added Parslow.

“It was upsetting to lose, but those are the games you sign up for, and it was great fun.

“Unfortunately we had three 50-run partnerships, but we didn’t have that one killer partnership or batsman to help us go through and finish the game off, that was probably the big difference.

“With the ball we didn’t bowl badly and we didn’t field badly, but Ealing batted really well, all of their batsman were able to come out and score a run a ball from the get go. That’s why we were chasing six an over from the start.”