Good Evans fireworks in April

As a self-confessed cricket ‘badger’ I have never understood those people who say that cricket is dull. In fifty years of playing and watching cricket I’m not sure that I have ever witnessed anything like I saw on Saturday.

Sawston and Babraham’s title successes over the last two seasons have been underpinned by an incredible fifty over record and an unerring ability to somehow get over the line in games that they shouldn’t win. With a reasonably large turnover of personnel this ability was one of the question marks the new squad needed to answer. The signs are promising as they secured their fifteenth fifty over win on the trot, they have now remarkably only lost one of their last twenty limited over games in the competition.

Earlier on in the day skipper Dan Heath had won the toss and breaking a little with tradition decided to bowl. The visitors made steady progress with four of the top five making decent starts. Mark Smith (1-27) and Alex Evans (2-30) made a couple of breakthroughs as Chapman (5) and the dangerous Jordan Taylor (25) moved the score to forty-three for two. Alfie Cooper (18) and Callum Taylor (18) had quietly moved the score onto seventy-eight without further loss before Louis Kimber made a spectacular entrance on his Rams debut.

He dismissed Taylor with his first ball in EAPL cricket. Cooper was then dismissed after a bit of hesitant running and a fantastic piece of fielding by Callum Guest. Kimber and fellow debutant Ben Claydon then put the squeeze on the middle order as seventy eight for two morphed into 124 for eight. Kimber helping himself to 4-30 and Claydon backing him up with 2-30 as only Peter Lambert (18) made it to double figures. The tail wagged successfully as Adam Todd (17) and Toby Duncan (11 not out) got the Norfolk side to 169 all out.

With an early season pitch and the pink ball unusually doing ‘a bit’ the Rams were hoping that that the thirty six wides and eight runs from no balls were not going to be a significant factor. Clearly bowling disciplines need to be reinforced after this ‘rusty’ start.

In reply Kimber, who is on the books at Leicestershire, opened up with Sawston’s ‘2022 Mr Reliable’ Callum Guest. With Adam Todd looking a real handful in his opening spell the Sawston pair were grateful for a bit of a release from the other end. They had raced to thirty-four before Kimber (14) edged Todd behind to keeper Barker. When Luke Spears (6) and Guest (13) were undone by Callum Taylor (2-41) the innings had stuttered to forty-eight for three. Worse was to follow as the EAPL’s leading wicket-taker for 2022 Saranga Rajaguru (3-34) entered the fray and he picked up two middle order victims as Clilverd and Choudhary as both departed to leave the home side’s reply in tatters at fifty-four for five.

Kieren MacKenzie and Claydon steadied the ship before Todd was brought back for the kill. The Swardeston quick was rewarded for an excellent spell picking up Mackenzie to finish with 2-19 from seven lively overs (nine of the runs conceded were wides!). Mackenzie had helped the score to eighty two. Skipper Heath joined Claydon before Alex Levinson (1-19) removed him and Rajaguru had the prized wicket of Claydon to leave the Rams dead and buried at ninety-five for eight!

Cue the fireworks! Alex Evans fresh from helping Parramatta, in Australia, to a Grand Final win played an extra-ordinary innings to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat for the 2021 and 2022 EAPL Champions Sawston and Babraham. Coming in at number nine with the Rams on ninety-three for seven he then saw Ben Claydon’s stubborn resistance (21 from 59 balls) ended with the addition of just two more runs. Surely that was the end of the home side hopes with the Swardeston squad and spectators ‘cock-a-hoop’. When James Vandepeer reached the crease the Rams were an unlikely seventy-five runs short. Evans had other thoughts and was keen to press home his winter claims to skipper Dan Heath that he was deserving of a higher spot in the order.

What followed was a remarkable piece of common-sense batting allied to some quite extraordinary ball striking as Evans raced to a twenty-six ball fifty that included three fours and four magnificent and massive maximums. His ‘junior’ partner also came to the party as Vandepeer employed a mix of hitting to a very sound defence. He finished on nineteen not out (from 21 balls with one four and two sixes). The seventy-five run winning partnership came off just forty-two balls.

Elsewhere there were wins for a couple of the 2022 leading lights Mildenhall (at Saffron Walden) and Sudbury (at home to new boys Wisbech). There were promising wins for a couple of last year’s strugglers, who both have ambitions to progress, as Witham (at home to Horsford) and Bury St. Edmunds (at home to Frinton) got their 2023 campaigns underway. A technology glitch means I do not know the Great Witchingham and Copdock result.