EAPL Round-up: Sawston & Babraham see winning run end at Cambridge as Swardeston close gap to 17 points with victory against Sudbury and Bury St Edmunds keep their run going in third
A 37-point lead at the top of the Read Brothers Ltd East Anglian Premier League has reduced to 17 – within a game of being overhauled - as Sawston & Babraham (138) suffered a surprise 48-run defeat at Cambridge (186).
The latter only picked up their first win of the campaign in last week's eighth round of matches, while Dan Heath's Rams, playing their first full season at the level, had lined up six straight victories (two being lost to the wet weather). But the league's only 100 per cent record did not last past the ninth weekend.
Cambridge won the toss and elected to bat, but things looked to be going well for the league-leading Rams with Mark Smith claiming another too early wickets to leave the hosts 4-2.
Things got worse for Cambridge as their top batter Daminda Ranaweera and the reliable former skipper Johnny Atkinson were both back in the pavilion with the score on 26-4, Smith adding a third wicket and his opening partner James Vandepeer picking up his first victim.
Ex-Sawston player Peter Richer (25) helped steady the ship with Robert Newby before Richer and skipper Lewys Hill both fell with the score on 62 as Waqas Hussain (3-32) picked up two in two balls.
Zaman Akhter helped Newby negotiate the rest of the session, taking Cambridge to 85-6 at lunch.
After the break Newby and Akhter had taken their valuable partnership to 50 before the latter was snared by Callum Guest.
At 112-7 the home side were still in deep trouble. However, Newby, with excellent work from the tail, added 33, 13 and 28 with James Cutter, Evan Hill and another Sawston old boy, Henry Campbell, respectively.
Campbell was ex-opening bowling partner Smith’s fourth victim (4-51) as the Cambridge innings closed on 186 with Newby stranded on 99 not out (from 151 balls, 12 4s and two 6s).
Cambridge had confidently predicted, early on in the week, that 180 would be a defendable total, and so it proved as the Rams again showed batting frailty.
Things were going well as Matthew Hague (22) and Hussain (23) blazed their way to 49 without loss, with each hitting five boundaries. The introduction of batting hero Newby then helped to spark a batting collapse as he snared both openers and Callum Guest.
With Hill (3-25) chipping in with the wickets of Guest’s brother Ethan and Charlie Lewis (21) Sawston had slipped to 78-5.
Newby then removed last week’s rear-guard batting hero AP Stafford and the league leaders were 87-6.
The tail again showed a bit of fight and resilience with Ben Clilverd (20), Dan Heath (12) and Vandepeer (20) all helping to move the score onto 137-8.
However, Henry Campbell’s three late wickets (3-45), including returning the compliment to Smith meant that Cambridge picked up a deserved 48-run victory.
Newby - with 4-24 and 99 not out - was clearly the star of the show.
Meanwhile, Swardeston (240-3) took full advantage by taking 25 points from a seven-wicket victory at home to Sudbury (239), despite their opponents having reduced them to 33-3 in pursuit of 240.
Sudbury batted first and got off to the worst possible start, losing a wicket in the first over of the game and quickly falling to 19-2.
South African overseas Rubin Hermann steadied the ship alongside Ben Parker, but when the latter fell with the score on 51 and another wicket fell two runs later, Sudbury were up against it at 53-4.
Kenny Moulton-Day played brightly for 26 but both he and Hermann (62) fell to Joe Gatting either side of lunch to leave the visitors 139-6.
A fantastic partnership between Ryan Vickery (44) and James Poulson, who top scored with 60 from 58 balls, led a counter-attack for Sudbury. And although they fell marginally short of full batting points, a total of 239 all out was definitely competitive at half way.
Sean Cooper continued his wicket taking form with the red ball by bowling Callum Taylor for nine, Jordan Taylor was run-out at the non-strikers end for seven and Darren Batch bowled Gatting with his first delivery to give Sudbury real hope.
This would prove to be short-lived, however, as Peter Lambert played aggressively to quickly shift the momentum in the chase, with Stephen Gray a steady support at the other end.
Sudbury skipper Adam Mansfield wrung the changes with the ball but none of his options were able to get the all-important breakthrough, and an unbroken stand of 207 between Lambert (115 not out) and Gray (85no) saw their side home.
The result moved Sudbury down to ninth place ahead of Saturday's home derby with Bury St Edmunds.
There was a good local derby win for Burwell & Exning (215-6) over at strong starters Mildenhall (211), with Tom Griffiths' side prevailing by six wickets with Cameron Steel and Tim Catley two of the stand-out performers.
All-rounder Steel did his damage with the ball, recording figures of 6-49 to help bowl out the hosts in 56.2 overs.
The experienced Catley, meanwhile, showed his quality with the bat by scoring an unbeaten 71 to help his team get over the winning line for just the second time in the Read Brothers Ltd East Anglian Premier League this term.
Batting first, opener Darren Ironside was Mildenhall’s leading light as he helped himself to 65 runs before falling to the bowling of Jay Ghelani.
After that a handful of the hosts’ batsmen made decent starts – including skipper Ollie Lovejoy (39) – but nobody was able to go on to record a telling score.
The Burwell & Exning reply got off to a terrible start as openers Steel (1) and Griffiths (0) departed in quick succession to leave the score 1-2.
And when Joe Tetley (15) followed shortly after to leave the away team 18-3, it looked like being an early finish at Wamil Way.
However, the combination of Catley and Olly Jeffries (60) steadied the innings with a partnership of 92 runs for the fourth wicket.
Jeffries was eventually trapped LBW by Peter Worthington, but that proved to be the last of the wickets to fall as Ed Fletcher joined Catley at the crease and duly hit seven 4s and three 6s on his way to 59 not out.
Bury St Edmunds (166-6) maintained their outstanding recent form with a four-wicket win at home to 2019 reigning champions Frinton-on-Sea (162).
Frinton, with a side lacking the star performers of recent times, won the toss and elected to bat on what looked a very good track but, as has been the case most of this season, bowlers held the upper hand.
George Loyd removed opener Tom Sinclair with the first ball he bowled and on 38 Alistair Allchin, who is bowling as well as any time in his career, took the wicket of Dan Smith.
Rufus Easdale then cleaned bowled Chris Harris and soon after it was 77-4 as Allchin had Jack Newby, who had batted well for 41, caught by wicketkeeper Chris Benjamin.
Max Dias caught and bowled Ben Reece on 107 and after this it became the Josh Cantrell show as the home spinner took four wickets for 43 runs.
Matt Doran took the other wicket as the visitors were all out for 162 in the 43rd over.
Bury opener Benjamin started like a train, scoring 33 quick runs. And when Hugh Stanton was out 37 had already been put on the first wicket.
Doran made a more patent 35 and Ben Seabrook was unlucky to be out for 18.
Again, the home side were indebted to Cantrell who batted sensibly, finishing with 40 not out despite losing two partners.
Bury remain third in the table and now 24 points behind the leaders Sawston & Babraham, while Seabrook's side are seven adrift of second-placed Swardeston.
Elsewhere, Copdock & Old Ipswichian (130, A Hanby 5-29) lost at home to Great Witchingham (132-7, Y Valli 50, M Wareing 5-36) by three wickets while Horsford (150, A Hancock 6-37) fell to a four wicket defeat to visiting Saffron Walden (151-6).
Swardeston advance through in T20
On Sunday, the three group winners of the EAPL National T20 competed for a place in the ECB National T20 regional finals at Bury St Edmunds' Victory Sports Ground.
This was a round robin T20 where Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge and Swardeston (who have won the national competition).
Bury St Edmunds lost the first game to Cambridge by one run, a result of too many dropped catches.
Swardeston beat Cambridge in the second game by a good margin.
The final game was again highly competitive with Bury winning by four runs, but as each club had won one game the result was decided on net run-rate with Swardeston marginally better than Bury.
It means the Norfolk side go through to the next stage of the national competition as the EAPL's sole representatives.
Weekend fixtures for Saturday (11am)
Burwell & Exning Vs Cambridge
Frinton-On-Sea Vs Mildenhall
Horsford Vs Copdock & Old Ipswichian
Saffron Walden Vs Swardeston
Sawston & Babraham Vs Great Witchingham
Sudbury Vs Bury St Edmunds
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