A glorious day at Cricketfield Lane saw the visit of Barnack CC. Having won the toss Rams elected to bat on a hard wicket, quick outfield and a 10 man strong fielding side! An early dismissal of Elliot Smith (0) saw Matt Slack (31) hit the middle early! Such was the case with Damien Clarke's batting, hitting a quickfire 52 before being bowled. Jordan Cafferkey also made light work of the spin and seam attacks hitting a creative 66 before being bowled by the spinner. Quick wickets of Manchett (3) and Burns (0) saw Australian Mark Nicholls hit the English wicket. A quality display of batting saw him romp up a rapid 54, hitting fences and trees beyond the confines of the boundary before Shahid the spinner hitting the poles once more! More was to come from the spinner as he mopped up the end of the innings with 3 more wickets. Rams finishing on a respectable 251 all out.
The sun still honing down on the field, the Rams opening bowlers Nick Page (1 wicket) and Mark Nicholls started to chip away at Barnack's attacking batting style, seeing away the top three batsmen for no more than 25 runs, including a catch from Tom Burns. Was the time when Mark started to crank up his Aussie fast bowling and saw Rams' slip cordon hoping not for a late cut and fizzing head height rocket from "the quickest bouncer the Ramsey wicket has ever seen"! Softening up the attack gave Mark 3 wickets for the match and a quality bowling spell of 12-1-65-3. With P.Best(45) going well, the skipper turned to himself and the spinners to do the deeds. With D.Ashraf producing a baseball style 45, Woodward was glad to strike the pads of the batsmen and twas the end of the biffing saga which was starting to get close to the required run rate. Woodward gained the crucial wicket of P.Best, with a catch off his own bowling. S.Best then came to the crease and played well for a decent half century which brought Barnack closer to the target. With J.Cafferkey racking up a cheeky 1 wicket haul Rams were struggling to find the last two wickets and a timely change of bowling attack from the skipper saw the introduction of Ash 'Big Bird' Wells who racked up the pace once more and took little time in completing the Ramsey win with 2 wickets in 2 balls! Overall a quality display of cricket from the Rams and a fine individual display from Mark Nicholls with 54 runs and 3 wickets
A good 20pt win for the Rams 2nd XI which sees them leapfrog Barnack in the table and nestle 5th in Hunts 1. On the back of three successive wins and a run of form the Rams now play second placed Huntingdon (A) and top of the table Blunham (H) in consecutive weeks to try to close the gap on the title.
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