Sudbury CC Host Epic Rematch

Wilson Wraight and the Veg Brigade swap Agricultural Fields for Cricket Fields

Sudbury CC was once again the venue for the highly anticipated rematch between a Wilson Wraight XI vs a Veg Brigade XI.

Captain of the Veg Brigade XI (R. Parry) won the toss against a newly promoted captain of the WW side (A. Peebles) who then proceeded to bowl first. Big transfer news pre-match was the transfer of E. Pissarro the former Captain of the WW XI to the ranks of the Veg Brigade XI.

The green wicket presented itself first to the Wilson Wraight openers A. Peebles and P. Walker and caused all sorts of problems with the Captain falling for a duck and P. Walker for four. The WW XI looked to be in trouble with the Veg Brigade team utilising both overhead and the green wicket conditions well. Numbers three (G. Page) and four (J. Webb) for the WW XI proved to be the main stalwarts for the batting side, top scoring with 26 and 25 run a piece respectively. This allowed the big hitters of G. Cooper, B. Skinner and J Gwatkin to stride out to the middle to play their natural game.

The Veg Brigade bowled and fielded fantastically to restrict the WW XI to 107, with notable bowling performances from R. Parry and T. Pratt who picked up a brace of wickets each and J. Smith and N. Kingston who were very economical.

With a low first innings total on the board the WW XI knew they had to bowl and field well to stand any hope of competing against a strong batting line up from the Veg Brigade XI. The Essex paceman S. Pimblett opened the bowling but struggled to make and immediate impact in his first over due to the swinging ball being very difficult to control. Each batsman from Veg Bridge contributed runs throughout their innings and were looking like eventual winners, keeping their run rate close to the 5.35 runs per over set by WW. WW however kept picking up wickets throughout whilst not letting the run rate get out of control to take the game into the latter stage where anything could happen. The last few overs proved to be as exciting as the previous encounter between the two sides with S. Ritchie, S. Pimblett and G. Cooper picking up wickets whilst G. Page, J. Webb and J. Gwatkin kept things tight. The Veg Brigade eventually needed 15 runs to win off the final over which was bowled by A. Peebles. The first two balls were smashed for a four and a six respectively which led to the retirement of R. Parry after exceeding his runs quota. Facing a new batsman the Captain of the WW XI managed to go for a further three runs from the last four balls after some Jonty Rhodes like fielding from his team to bring the thriller of a game back into Wilson Wraight’s grasp right at the death.

A big thank you goes to the Sudbury CC for the ground and providers of the post-match tea from both sides.