Tight cricket derby while Downham Town lead by 44 points
North Runcton’s narrow derby victory at Stow has dented their hosts’ Norfolk Cricket Alliance title hopes, while leaders Downham Town have a healthy 44-point gap at the top.
Runcton 1st XI won by eight runs in the Premier Division after Stow won the toss and elected to field.
Stow’s bowlers made early breakthroughs, reducing the visitors to 50-3. Jamie Cook (2-21) took the key wicket of Kirwin Christoffels.
Nick Freeman 52 and skipper Benjamin Coote 43 recovered the innings with a stand of 71. Amit Dhadwal was the chief wicket-taker in a tight Stow unit with 4-45 as Runcton posted 180 for 8 in 50 overs. Their next biggest scorers was extras with 21.
The Stow reply went along similar lines, falling to 54-3 before opener Dhadwal 60 and skipper Otto Esse 43 formed a recovery by adding 78.
The North Runcton attack was also tidy, led by Coote 2-39, Ben Skipper 3-42, Michael Annakin 2-19 and Christoffels ending the contest with 3-31, but Stow had nearly seven overs to spare when they were dismissed for 172 in 43.2 overs.
Again extras was third-top scorer with 36.
Downham won at lowly Garboldisham, who elected to bat, by five wickets after Addam Todd bagged four wickets. It puts Downham on 192 points with North Runcton on 158, 33 ahead of Stow.
Fakenham are in fourth spot on 124 after Keegan Monahan-Fairlie (ten fours and a six) and Luke Caswell both compiled 75, doubling the score with a fourth-wicket stand of 71 to ensure a competitive 263-8 was just enough, by eight runs.
In Division Two, Jasper Payne’s 101 off 107 balls ensured Swaffham overhauled hosts Ashmanhaugh and Barton Wanderers’ 247-6 by seven wickets.
Scores: Garboldisham 153 all out (44 overs: Joss Stuart 2-35, Chris Sharp 3-22, Addam Todd 6-1-24-4). Downham Town 155 for 5 (38 overs: Ian Harrison 31, Jack Gould not out 34, Nathan Green 32, Todd not out 23).
Brooke 1st XI 250 all out (49.1; Caswell 1-38, David Coyle 2-45, Ash Layer 2-53, Monahan-Fairlie 2-31, Yin Lo 1-44). Fakenham 263-8 (50.0: Monahan-Fairlie 75, Ben Harvey 22, Caswell 75, Will Dunger 25).
Alliance Division Five
On a glorious Saturday afternoon at Postwich, Norwich were put into bat and opener Anthony Goodrum played a sensible innings of 89 to take the score to 178-7, losing his wicket in the 43rd over.
Pick of the Denver bowlers were Joe Manning 3-29 and Chris Rolfe 3-35.
After a brief rain shower, which had everyone racing for the covers, Denver lost an early wicket bringing Harvey Wardle in to join Paul Morton. They built an excellent partnership of 133 before Wardle was caught on 52. Morton went onto an excellent 72 being well caught at mid-on with the score on 163. Gurpal Singh joined Dan Cornwell to hit the winning runs in the 31st over. Mention must go to spinner Enoch Utuayarajan, 12, who turned the ball both ways.
Downham Home and Garden MoM: Paul Morton.
Norfolk Cricket League Division 4W
Denver 2nd beat Bircham 2nd by 2 wickets
Denver, maybe slightly luckily, won thanks to an 85 run eighth wicket partnership between Ben Watts and Giles Lewis.
Bircham won the toss and batted first. Stephen King batted throughout the innings for an unbeaten 67. Wides were the next top scorer with Denver conceding 21. Dan Harper 4-36 from his 10 was the pick of the Denver bowlers, assisted by Joseph Porter 1-15, Nathan Thulbourne 1-7 and Jesse Tierney 1-16. The home side’s much improved fielding helped keep Bircham to 144-8 from their 45 overs.
Denver lost their first five wickets for 29 runs. Ben King 3-24 and Andrew Bishop 3-33 had the ball moving around wildly. When Watts 66no and Lewis 20 came together with the score on 42-6 all hope seemed lost. However Watts, playing his first game for two years, started to pick off the bad balls and the pair picked up ones and twos. When Lewis departed the score was 137-8. Watts and Tierney secured the victory with three overs to spare.
CGM/Downham Country Garden Store MoM: Ben Watts.
