Another big weekend for the Rams
The Rams face perhaps their biggest weekend, yet, in their history. They travel to title rivals Swardeston on Saturday and then meet Shepherds Bush at home on Sunday with a place in the Rothesay National Club Championship final at stake.
The Rams will be looking to extend their unbeaten run beyond fifteen, and hopefully to seventeen, but face another form team on Saturday. Their Norfolk rivals have just one blemish on the record in the last fourteen. They have lost their overseas Tim Ward, but they have certainly made light of that in the last two weeks, Benjamin Chapman and skipper Alfie Cooper have like their absent overseas scored over five hundred league runs. New boy Jonah Wicks has had a decent first year at the Common; and generally Richard Sims, Saranga Rajaguru and Peter Lambert can be relied on for important runs. With ball Saranga leads KC Cariappa by one wicket at the top of the pile (with 46), his contribution dwarfs the twenty-two scalps each for Ben France and Adam Todd.
Ethan Rice’s decent trot with the bat now means that he has overtaken skipper Callum Guest (748 runs) and Ben Claydon (695) as he now has seven hundred and eighty league runs and sits fourth in the EAPL ladder. Guest and Claydon sit fifth and eighth. The Rams spinning duo of Claydon and James Sykes are locked in combat to be the Rams top wicket-taker with Claydon just one ahead as the pair have registered seventy-one wickets between them.
Sykes is already claiming a victory, albeit only over Mildenhall’s Jack Loveday, in a sprint challenge at Cambridgeshire’s match at Copdock. Neither party will be joining Team GB’s impressive squad of sprinters who won just about everything at the Europeans.
The Rams are expected to make a couple of changes with players absent; Miguel Machado is expected to come back in after his half-century for the twos last week.
It could be a pivotal week in the title race with four of the top five meeting, as well as the clash of the title winners for the last five seasons Horsford host Mildenhall. With Copdock at home to Frinton a defeat for Mildenhall could hole them below the water-line. However, don’t discount them for the title if they get a win as they have three very winnable games. Equally a win for Horsford perhaps puts them in the box seat; although a win for Swardeston would also leave them with three other winnable games (whenever has one point been so critical). Copdock may rue the defeat against Mildenhall and that two-point gap even if they beat the Rams in three games time. As for the Rams it would take another monumental effort, on top of an already monumental effort, for us to lift the title. With three difficult games against teams in the top four and the National Cup run, sadly, I fear that we will be King-makers not Kings this year. Elsewhere Ramsey host the enigmatic AB Wanderers; and Sudbury host Bury hoping to guarantee their survival.
The twos have another difficult game this time at home to Eaton Socon; hopeful that the visitors will be playing a few in their seconds to help them to promotion. With availability sketchy and the first and third teams being rightly prioritised the Club owes its thanks to the lads who have stepped in for what is likely to be a difficult afternoon. All the team who have put the Club first deserve great credit; perhaps special praise should be lavished on Max Boxall. ‘Boxey’ returns to action after his season seemed over after a nasty injury recently.
The thirds have a vital game at home to Great Shelford in their bid to stay in Junior 1s. Rickling Ramblers’ two defaults have made the Rams task even harder. The Shells came out on top by a mere ten runs in one of the many games that the Rams looked like winning for large parts of the match. With no stand outs with the bat for either side, statistically at least, Sawston skipper Jake Ellis will be hoping that his and his dad’s wickets (forty-one between them) can make the decisive difference. He will be pleased that last week’s centurion, the impressive teenager, Henry Cotton has remained in the thirds to lead the batting unit alongside Wes Potschul.
On Sunday the two SBCC’s meet at Spicers. The visitors, Shepherds Bush CC, now the home club to former Ram Matt Day ply their trade in the Middlesex Premier league. They are currently fifth but are in decent form in the league with only a defeat to Crouch End (the league leaders) in their last eight. They boast nine wins from eleven games in the various cup competitions. They like us seem to like a nail biter having defeated Bath by two wickets and four balls to spare earlier in the competition, as Fin Trenouth blasted an unbeaten one hundred and ten off just sixty-nine balls. Mitchell Crayn leads the way with the bat in the league (720 runs @ 60) and Thomas Jenke has over five hundred. Ajay Dhindsa has thirty-three wickets with Ramon Bailey and Jay Brocklesby both just five adrift. In the last round of the National they defeated Teddington, from their own league, but lost out to the same opposition in the Middlesex Cup semi a week later. Their scorecards contain a familiar name in Adam Chislett who will have the inside track on us given his season with Great Witchingham in the EAPL.
Despite both Suffolk and Cambridgeshire being on NCCA duty the Rams are expected to be at full strength on Sunday; so that’s a big thank you to the respective County Clubs.