New record for Mansfield as Suffolk cling on for a draw against Lincolnshire
Birthday boy Adam Mansfield is celebrating a second Minor Counties record for Suffolk in successive championship matches.
The Suffolk skipper, who plays for Sudbury, equalled the 40-year-old record for the most number of dismissals in a season by a Suffolk wicket-keeper in the drawn match against Lincolnshire.
Mansfield marked his 27th birthday on Tuesday by drawing level with former Suffolk stumper Stuart Westley, who was responsible for 37 dismissals in the 1978 season.
After taking three catches in the visitors’ first innings at Ipswich School, Mansfield claimed a catch and a stumping before catching Nick Keast off Tom Rash to equal the record.
The feat came just a fortnight after Mansfield had broken Westley’s record of 10 catches in a match when he took 12 in the innings-and-eight-runs victory over Hertfordshire at North Mymms CC.
Mansfield, who made his Minor Counties debut in 2011, said: “It is always nice to break records – I believe it was my 100th championship dismissal as well which made it extra special.
“When I came into the team we had Simon Guy, who was our pro, keeping wicket, so I had to earn my spot as wicket-keeper, and when you have earned something you want to make the most of it, which I am currently trying to do.”
Mansfield will have the chance claim the record for himself in Suffolk’s final Unicorns Championship match of the season, against Cambridgeshire at Saffron Walden, starting on September 2.
He added: “As I said after breaking the other record, a lot of credit has to go to our bowlers. Hopefully I can claim the record outright against Cambridgeshire.
“We have potentially two innings for me to do it, and with how well our bowlers have been performing, hopefully I will get the chance to do so.”
Suffolk go into that match with a chance of still winning the Eastern Division, after a backs-to-the-wall display saw them earn an unlikely draw against table-topping Lincolnshire.
The visitors dominated the match, earning a 136-run first innings lead, before setting Suffolk 370 to win in what amounted to 85 overs on the last afternoon.
Sudbury’s Martyn Cull, recalled to the side for his first championship match of the season, fell for just four as he had done in the first innings, after opening with Mansfield, who made 28.
When Jack Beaumont was out for 37 to leave Suffolk 135-7 in the 40th over, it looked odds-on Lincolnshire would claim the victory to extinguish Suffolk’s title chances.
But Mildenhall skipper Rash and Mike Comber, who had top-scored with 59 in Suffolk’s first innings, had other ideas, putting on 97 in an eighth-wicket partnership spanning 40 overs.
Rash fell for 49 and Bury St Edmunds all-rounder Josh Cantrell, who had returned figures of 13-4-29-3 in Lincolnshire’s second innings, followed for just four with 10 balls remaining.
But Comber, whose unbeaten 56 occupied 137 balls – nine more than Rash’s stubborn resistance – and no.11 Ollie Bocking stood firm to earn the draw.
