Dropped catches sink Buccs in Framlingham thriller

Old adversaries Mark Nicholls of The Gentlemen of Suffolk and Simon Woolfries both knew the shape of the match when Mark, on winning the toss, bravely chose to field in perfect batting conditions at Framlingham College last Sunday.

The opening overs were somewhat bizarre with Harry Franks sending down a volley of wides from one end while Roger Luxmore-Styles purveyed very slow, but accurate, left-armers from the other.

David Bugge settled in to make the most of his opportunity after a long journey but two early LBW decisions reduced the Buccs to 49-2. LBWs were to be a feature of the day with four in each innings. Sujay Chakravarti strode in at No4 and struck the ball impressively before failing to pick a googly from Alex Carlisle during a lengthy spell of testing leg spin. With Sujay departing for 40, the Buccs lunched at 135-3.

With Bugge sailing serenely on into the afternoon against a toiling Stephen Willis and more spin from Carlisle and Luxmore-Styles, the timing of the declaration loomed as a pivotal point in the match. Although Bugge finally fell for a fine 105, No8 Andy Morgan kept the score moving with an enterprising 43. Woolfries finally called a halt after 66 overs at 3.50pm on 272-9 which, he calculated, gave the Gents a target of about 6 runs an over for around 45 overs.

Richard Elston and Nick Hasler opened up with some tidy seamers but Taylor and Carr were in no great difficuly on this pitch until Carr was LBW to Elston. Hasler. unfortunately, pulled a muscle so Bugge, despite his long innings in the heat,
took over and delivered 9 accurate overs.

Harry Franks came in at No3 and the Buccs knew what to expect from the tall right-hander who had taken two rapid hundreds of them in previous encounters. Franks was soon unleashing drives of great power although most of them were
in the air so the introduction of John Bryant’s flighted off-spin
was likely to be a significant moment. So it proved, as Franks
hit his 2nd ball straight to a carefully-positioned long off who promptly dropped it.

Woolfries brought himself on just before the start of the last 20 overs and quickly had Taylor well caught by Hasler for 54.
At this stage the Gents had 8 wickets in hand and were well up with the required run rate but their attacking approach was producing regular chances, particularly of the patient Bryant.

Although Sujay Chakravarti held two well-judged catches at long on five others went down of Bryant. He was finally rewarded with the vital wicket of Franks who was stumped for a thunderous 107 at which stage any result seemed possible.

Tim Sheldon and Will Nicholls contributed twenties but Woolfries and Bryant worked their way through the Gents batting to set up a tense finish. Ian Collett finally saw his side home in the penultimate over in company with with the exhausted No11, Stephen Willis.

Such a close ending had seemed extremely unlikely an hour earlier when Franks was going strong. It was a great day in the sun and a triumph for declaration cricket!