Rams go back-to-back !
A patched-up Rams 1st team which were carrying more injuries than is on show at an average A&E department notched up a second successive victory, this time away at their closest, at least geographically, rivals Saffron Walden.
I arrived at the ground early and as I sat around, I was greeted by a tail of woe as a number of players, and in particular bowlers, were telling me that they would be unable / unlikely to be able to bowl. A couple even suggesting that batting was going to be a struggle. With the home side winless after four matches and bottom of the pile, but appearing to have a stronger side this weekend and with the home side support bolstered by the Club hosting one of their VP dinners I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was hoping that it was just down to a lack of breakfast!
Anyway, there was a delayed start, due to a damp outfield, but with the help of a shortened mid innings break the match was still scheduled for the full fifty overs. My feeling of unease did not desist as skipper Dan Heath, again, won the toss and once again decided to bat first. With a decent forecast a lot of people, including the home groundsman, queried this choice. In the absence of Yousuf Choudhary and Noah Thain vice skipper Callum Guest walked out to the middle with another new partner. Heath also without the option of Charlie Lewis, who would have been the natural choice plumped to use Ethan Rice. One of our bowling all-rounders who is currently not able to bowl through injury! The Walden seam attack of Ben Spargo and Daniel Farmer bowled tightly and were getting some assistance from the wicket, and from their teammates in the field, with the Sawston pair batting cautiously. Rice then knicked Spargo behind and a couple overs later Jack Beaumont followed to give Spargo (2-17) his second wicket as the Rams lurched to thirteen for two. Beaumont’s dismissal perhaps highlighting that the ball was sticking a little bit in the surface, despite the excellent carry. The Rams slowly rebuilt with Guest being joined by Ben Claydon and they moved the score along to fifty in the eighteenth over.
A couple overs later they reached their half-century partnership (off 68 balls). They avoided the usual calamity that the drinks break often brings and Claydon moved to his personal half-century (off 52 balls). His one four and three sixes (all straight) gave us a clue to highlight the sluggish outfield and the huge boundaries square of the wicket. The Rams then moved into three figures (off 166 balls) before the pair reached their century stand (from 130 balls) in the thirtieth over. Guest reaching another personal milestone just seven balls later, his fifty coming off a more watchful ninety-two balls. Just when I was beginning to relax and think about a score of around two hundred and forty Claydon fell (he had survived a couple of drops on his way to a well made 66 from 72 balls). Claydon was plucked, like last week, just inches from the boundary off Oliver Rae.
Things went from bad to worse when Lee Thomason was run-out after a mix up, and then they went from worse to ‘worser’ as Guest then chopped on off the bowling of Rae (2-47). The Rams had gone from one hundred and twenty for two to one hundred and thirty-one for five. The loss of Guest was potentially critical as he was the obvious option to anchor the innings and take the total to something more challenging. When the skipper coming in at number seven, joined one of last week’s batting heroes Alex Evans, it perhaps highlighted the injury issues within the ranks and my expectations of the final score had dramatically reduced.
However, the skipper assessed the conditions and understood his role, as he supported Evans as they built slowly adding just twenty or so runs in the best part of the next ten overs to take the score to one hundred and fifty in the forty-second over. Evans then hit the accelerator as the pair reached a fifty stand from just fifty-four balls. The skipper (10) was then undone by Ben Harris with the score on one hundred and eighty-four for six. James Vandepeer then helped Evans get the score just past two hundred when Evans became Harris’s (2-50) second victim. Evans innings of fifty-seven (40 balls) was arguably even better than his half-century last week given both the conditions for batting and the game situation. With Evans’ demise hopes of a score in excess of two-forty were forgotten particularly as Vandepeer would be batting with the injury hit tail. Farmer (2-48) returned to pick up Darlow (rib injury) and then Vandepeer (11) before Clilverd (shoulder) somehow managed to hit two boundaries as he and Sean Ward got the score to two hundred and thirty in the full fifty overs.
The Walden reply began in a similar vein to the Rams as the openers Joshua Down and Tom Banham batted watchfully against some tight bowling from Vandepeer and Beaumont. Beaumont then had the Walden skipper Down caught by Ward with nineteen on the board. Bonham (22) who had just started to play a little more expansively was then bowled by Beaumont with the score on thirty.
A couple of the home sides young guns then played sensibly as Harry Gallian and Alex Pierson took the score to fifty after exactly fifteen overs. They too also survived the drinks break and reached their fifty partnership (off 108 balls) in the twenty-sixth over. They had progressed the score into three figures in the thirtieth over, the required rate had grown to around six and a half an over but with the explosive Brynn Mendel and Ben Harris still to come the hopes of the capacity home crowd were high.
Injuries have meant that the Rams Lee Thomason has been pressed into service as an emergency seamer and his ten wicket to wicket tight overs deserve a mention. Sawston sprang another surprise as they turned to the off-spin of Claydon (he hasn’t bowled his seamers since the back end of last season due to ankle trouble) although wicketless he seemed to be getting grip and bounce. The introduction of George Darlow (who stated at the start that he wouldn’t bowl due to a rib injury) then had a dramatic impact when he bowled Pierson (31 off 73) and then Thomason (1-42) was rewarded when he had Gallian well caught by Rice. Gallian had just hit a six to reach his fifty (77 balls) but perished very soon after attempting to repeat the shot. Darlow then teased out the dangerous Mendel and Harris with the score on one hundred and thirty for six. Sam Robinson was then caught spectacularly by Rice, who caught it and then threw it into the air as he was about to step over the boundary and completed the catch with a full-length diving save. Spargo hung around with Jack Sneath who seemed to be sensibly batting for bonus points as the winning line looked too distant.
However, Spargo lost patience before being caught by Thomason in the covers to give Darlow a fifth wicket! Beaumont returned and was rewarded with a third wicket (3-21) when Evans caught Farmer. Rae then got carried away after hitting Darlow for a six and four and was stumped by Heath off Darlow with the next bonus point just a handful of runs away! Darlow finished with a personal best for the Ram’s of 6-37 as the Essex side finished sixty runs short.
The Rams although they had executed their primary objective failed to make up any ground in the tile race as all four of the top sides (after yesterday’s results) all won. Leaders Copdock maintained the only unbeaten record when they defeated new boys AB Wanderers by five wickets. Horsford stayed second by beating Frinton in a low scoring encounter. Third place Mildenhall thanks to some late order runs and Kc Cariappa (6-17) outdoing George stopped the Great Witchingham ‘revival’ in its tracks. Bury beat Sudbury to leap frog the Suffolk side and move into fourth. The top four covered by a blanket or handkerchief of just six points. In the end Sudbury slipped to seventh as Swardeston win at home to Witham meant they followed the Rams in overtaking the Suffolk outfit. The Rams moved to fifth but remain twenty-three points adrift.
In the second part of the Rams – Crocus derby the Club’s second teams met at Spicers in the Oynx Premier league. The home side won the toss and inserted the opposition with a slightly damp outfield perhaps making up home skipper Ant Phillips’ mind. Will Bailey (2-33) made an early breakthrough to remove stand-in skipper Luke Swanston with just two on the board. However, Walter Forsey (56) and overseas Keelan Mendel (42) then added eighty-five for the second wicket. Jaken Raven struck twice to remove Mendel and Stan Leach in quick succession. Forsey and Adam Whitehead then started to stabilise things moving the score onto one hundred and ten for three. The Rams attack continued to squeeze and were rewarded as Raven (5-18) picked up another three wickets, with Phillips (1-35) and Miguel Machado (1-9) one each as the opposition slumped to one hundred and twenty-two for eight. However, Connor Cheverall (18 not out from 57) hung around and with Cam Taylor (24 from 48) to add a valuable thirty-nine runs as the innings closed on one hundred and sixty-one for nine.
The Rams lost regular wickets as Phillips (19), Henry Cotton (9), Julius Jackson (19) and Chrity O’Connor all perished but the Rams were still handily placed on one hundred and eleven for four. Youngsters Noah Vintiner (2-30) and Josh O’Connor sharing the wickets. Nelsons struck as O’Conner (4-28) removed Machado (38 from 34) who perished by the sword! and Luke Herholdt. The Rams needed some one to stick around with Will Bailey. Liam Flynn did for a while helping the all-rounder to add twenty-two runs but there was a double blow as Leech (1-28) picked up Flynn and Nick Griggs was run-out. Bailey was left stranded (33 no off 54) as the Rams limped to one hundred and fifty-one, and a ten-run defeat, as Mendel finished with 2-15 to close the innings.
Our Under-13’s in a rare win over a Saffron Walden youth team ensured a two-one win for the Rams over the Crocus for a Club win over the weekend! It was an excellent all-round performance with three wickets for Daniel Sutcliffe and a brace for Felix Hincks plus unbeaten thirties for openers Ethan Hayes-Fernandez and skipper Dhrona Gopalan.
The Rams thirds broke their duck and reversed the form table when they built on last week’s encouraging display to defeat the previously unbeaten league leaders Bassingbourn in Junior One. Skipper Jake Ellis’s thirty-four and Wes Potschul’s eighteen at the top of the order were the only double-digit scores as the Rams succumbed to seventy-six for seven as Ghanshyam Boricha (3-30) and Raju Devendran (3-18) weaved their magic. The game however was turned on this head by a stunning eighth wicket partnership between Oliver Humphreys (64 from 49 balls) and Torin Phelps (40 not out from 52 balls). The pair added eight-three before Humphreys fell to Lakmal Fernando (1-3). Phelps helped the innings to close on one hundred and seventy for eight.
Like the Sawston innings the visitors lost regular wickets, including the prolific Boricha, as this season’s new signing Dushyant Patel (3-36) and that man Humphreys (1-18) made early inroads. However, it was the Sawston skipper’s introduction that help to insure a first win of the season for the Rams as he took five for twenty to dismiss the opposition for one hundred and five. Jon Windsor (1-27) picked up the other wicket as the Rams triumph by seventy-three runs. The other results in the division where Ashwell and Rickling were both defeated highlights what a competitive division this is.
The SBCC 4th team entertained Girton on Sunday playing two T20 friendly matches to get their season underway and in preparation for their first league game next week. The honours were shared as Girton won the first match by seven wickets but the Rams gained revenge by winning the second match by five wickets. In the first match there was three wickets for the visitors’ Will Matthews and a brace for Gavin Smalley with only Ben Latham (16) and Sean Gardiner (12) making any progress for the Rams. Girton’s Adam Dyer with 32 not out and Val Biswas with 18 no saw the Cambridge side home despite ex-Girton player Dushyant Patel’s three wickets. In the second match Smalley weighed in with 42 and Andrew Chapman 21 as Girton posted ninety-two. Alex Myles bowled impressively as did Rob Hayes and Dom Cameron who got his first wicket since his return to cricket. It was that man Patel who ensured that the honours were even by matching Smalley’s 42 as the Rams won by five wickets despite Chapman’s brace and a wicket for Maddy Shanks.