The Rams face a full week of fixtures

Almost incredibly the Rams name an unchanged side for their trip to Mildenhall. The Rams are unlikely to take the opposition lightly; despite their current poor form. The Suffolk side have been one of the Rams closest rivals over the last five years, and there have been some classic and pivotal encounters. SBCC tasted a rare defeat last year at Mildenhall in the red ball game and will want to correct the record.

Mildenhall are essentially the same side that has competed at the upper end of the EAPL over the last five years. Their top order hasn’t quite hit their straps, yet, but skipper Tristan Blackledge and Joe Tetley nearly always perform against the Rams. They also have KC Cariappa back this season, he won the 2024 EAPL wickets title by a street, and can be dangerous with the bat. He is again their leading wicket-taker and is being well backed up by Cambridgeshire’s Jack Loveday.

The Rams have plenty of depth in both departments with Ben Claydon knocking on the door of five hundred league runs after just six games. Lee Thomason is clearly enjoying the opportunity to bat further up the order this year, and was in superb form last weekend. Jack Beaumont leads the way with the ball, with an astonishing strike rate. He is one ahead of Mark Smith and then there are another five bowlers who have and average of seven wickets apiece; this underlines the depth.

Elsewhere Sudbury, currently second, meet AB Wanderers at home with the visitors still looking to register their first win of the season. They did however, make it through, to the EAPL T20 finals at the weekend; they will meet Sudbury and the Rams. Third placed Downham Stow host Witham. Horsford travel to Norfolk rivals Witchingham. Copdock face Frinton and Swardeston are at home to Bury.

The second team welcome the other Rams, Ramsey, to Spicers. This will be another stern examination following last week’s defeat at leaders Burwell. The visitors, who are the reigning champions; and were perhaps the favourites to retain it, will be pushing for a victory so that they can start making up ground after, for them, a disappointing start to 2025. They however, would have been delighted with last week’s win at Foxton.

Dan Heath, who tuned up for Saturday with a decent 70 (46)  in the Midweek game returns to the starting line-up. Sean Ward and Jake Raven return but Yousuf Choudhary is missing. The Rams will hope that they can add a decent performance with the bat to that excellent performance with the ball when they played Ramsey in the pink ball format earlier this season.

The Rams third team go for five wins on the bounce when they meet Ashdon at the Churchman Ground. With leading run-scorer and Club Legend Wes Potschul missing the skipper is delighted to welcome back Robbie Matthews and Joe Latham; and to give Club skipper Oli Borley a seasonal debut!  He loses a couple of his young bowlers but replaces them with the in-form Ethan Hayes Fernandez, who will keep, and Yashitha Fernado .

The fourth team had the luxury of naming their side before lunchtime on Thursday, for their trip to Royston. Skipper Dom Cameron is glad of the company of Adrian Platt to get the average age of his side above twenty. He is delighted to have all of his young bowlers, sorry Adrian that doesn’t include you!, as the impressive Zane Dennington,; Josh Coleman; Alex Myles; Sam Ronco and Ben Latham are all available. The skipper will hope that they have all netted well in the week and that the wides count will be much lower this time around!