1s & 3s hunt vital wins on the road! Tibbsy's weekend preview 21.08

The Club only has two games this weekend, but at this time of the year they tend to be important ones.

The Third team, after their defeat last Saturday and their superb, but in vain, performance on Sunday where they almost defended their Lower Junior Cup title will looking for something more positive. They will be hoping for a victory that will almost guarantee that they will be unable to make it to a fourth successive lower Junior Cup Finals Day appearance since they will be in the Junior Cup! They face a Fen Ditton side who leapfrogged the Rams into second place last week, with the winner of the ‘forty’ pointer guaranteed to go top of the division with current leaders, Thriplow, inactive.

Skipper Jake Ellis sticks with his promising new boy Liam Flynn at the top of the order and welcomes back Sean Jenkins, Torin Phelps, and one of Sunday’s heroes Joe Latham. Sam Browne’s ‘failure’ to cut the last ball for six means he can only warm the bench. There is a surprise inclusion as Ollie Borley is named in the squad, hopefully Addenbrookes A&E have been put on standby! Andy Leonard is resting until at least April following his moment of madness where he played both days last weekend!

The first team face a trip to Mildenhall in what appears to be the first of four cup-finals for the Rams. The statistics show that we are unbeaten against Saturday’s opponents, they also show that we have never beaten Gt.Witchingham or Cambridge and that Copdock have a win against us on their record. So then statistically that’s an away banker! However, we all know about statistics, ‘lies, damned lies………..’ and all that.

Mildenhall did us an enormous favour last week when they finally got over the winning line thanks to an amazing last wicket stand to defeat second place Witchingham. You need to go back to 12 June to see their last defeat, coming a week after their away defeat to the Rams. With three other very winnable games to come they are looking for a top three finish. They like us are a good all- round side with lots of options with bat and ball. Darren Ironside, Nicholas Smit and Jack Potticary have all scored above 330 runs. Tom Rash with 26 wicket and Smit with 18 lead the way with the ball, they have six bowlers with ten or more league wickets to underline their strength in depth.

Sawston skipper Dan Heath, is pleased to welcome back three players missing from last week and is hoping to be at full strength (still minus the injured Hague, Thain and Patel). Heath will be hoping that men of the moment James Vandepeer, Ben Clilverd, and Waqas Hussain all carry on where they left off last week. Vandepeer will be hoping for a few more scalps so that he can join 30 league wickets pair Clilverd and Mark Smith.