Sunday saw the beautiful Newdigate ground bathed in glorious sunshine and bearing witness to a magnificent Buccs display with bat, ball and the old adage “catches win matches”. Most unusually (and unluckily for Newdigate) not a single catch was put down.
Having won the toss and electing to bat at 2pm; the opening pair of Kim Ross (28) and Sujay ‘The Wall’ Chakravarti started quickly building a partnership of 71 for the first wicket. Sujay (51) was in fine form indeed, playing both with brute force – immediately smashing seven consecutive fours beginning with his third ball – and elegantly – with some Gower-esque late cuts and off drives. However, although both fell to uncharacteristically loose shots, this did not affect the pace of run scoring as the next two batsmen built on the platform. Will Noble (71) combined an array of fine shots all around the ground with rapid running between the wickets. The younger ‘Wall’, Subir Chakravarti (60) played a marvelously measured innings littered with both subtle and attacking stokes [who’s paying for this? Ed].
A fine spell of Newdigate bowling saw Ross take three wickets in five balls: removing the two top run scorers and a previous leading Buccs run scorer for a golden duck (he made up for it later with the gloves and some helpful field repositioning) [seems like quite a few people. Ed]. This briefly slowed the Buccs innings but with cameos from Muktesh Ghatak (10) and not outs from Rob Rydon (6) and Will ‘Beefy’ Metcalfe (for the second match in a row for 18) we easily past the 250 target by 4.30pm.
After tea, Rob ‘The Wineham Express’ Rydon (5-0-19-3) raced down the hill and bowled the first three batsmen in quick succession. The ball hit the top of off stump for his first wicket after “moving it back about three inches”. He was later heard to complain of having no strength in old age as he walked back to his mark. Five balls later he removed the second batsman’s middle stump and sent it cartwheeling at high velocity into the slip cordon causing the keeper and three slips to scatter like crows from a shotgun.
Simon Woolfries took the first of a string of unbelievable catches, a superb effort with his right hand shooting out low and to the right at second slip to remove Newdigate’s number four bat.
Will Metcalfe replaced ‘The Express’ and swung the ball in prodigiously, if a little erratically, to take three good wickets (6-1-36-3). His last wicket was a catch that scythed off the bat and almost into the face of Sujay at first slip who reacted like a pouncing cat, deflecting the ball up into the air and then juggling it to safety with both hands.
Simon Woolfries rolled back the years with a fine display of accurate spin bowling and allowed the current Hon Sec to take a fine running catch.
Simon “The Chinaman” Leefe; experimenting with his new action, bowled well and took two wickets. The first of these was hit high into the sun with Hobson running in from the boundary to dive full length and take the last of the great catches. Simon then finished off the Newdigate innings by clean bowling the last man for a single. A magnificent all round performance to continue the winning start to the season.
Innings of Buccaneers
Kim Ross ct another b Flower 28
Sujay Chakravarti ct another Nix 51
Will Noble ct & b Ross 71
Subir Chakravarti lbw Ross 60
Muktesh Ghatak b Flower 10
Jim Harcourt b Ross 0
Will Metcalfe not out 18
Rob Rydon not out 6
P Hobson did not bat
S Leefe did not bat
S Woolfries did not bat
Extras 15
Total 259 for 6
Bowling
Kris 8-1-32-0
P Bettsworth 4-1-27-0
Flower 8-0-39-2
Rookie 10-0-49-0
Nix 6-0-55-1
Ross 8-0-45-3
Innings of Newdigate
P Bettsworth b Rydon 13
J Penfold b Rydon 0
M Rance b Rydon 2
D Drew ct Woolfries b Hobson 4
A Roast b Metcalfe 12
Lee lbw Metcalfe 4
R Witrangasinga ct Sujay Chakravati b Metcalfe 47
J Bowley not out 2
Nix ct Rydon b Woolfries 8
Kris ct Hobson b Leefe 5
R Flower b Leefe 1
Extras 17
Total 115 all out
Bowling
Rob Rydon 5-0-19-3
Paul Hobson 6-2-14-1
Will Metcalfe 6-1-36-3
Simon Leefe 6.1-0-40-2
Simon Woolfries 2-0-2-1