Que Será Será whatever will be will be we’re going to Sudbury

This was a song we’d been singing at Maldon for a few years but in truth our previous visits to Sudbury had not been very rewarding. Most grounds afford some kind of home advantage, we knew the dimensions of Drapers pretty well and understood where you could take the extra run. Sudbury is a venue where there are very short straight boundaries at both ends and the home team always seemed to know how to maximise these. As I recall, like us, Sudbury had a good start to the campaign and we travelled to Friars Street having already learned that their overseas star, 21 year old South African Jon Kent, was a gun. As it transpired he would top both the league batting (90) and bowling (13) averages with those hugely impressive numbers! We made three changes with a return for Jeff Cook, a first outing of the season for James Ellis and for his only appearance of the campaign, Keith Bannister. These guys replaced Neal Harrington, Damian Westwood and Neil Bannister. It’s debatable, but given that this left us without a top 4 batter, our keeper and an opening bowler, our team was weaker than in the first two matches for what was on paper our toughest test yet. Spaggs duly maintained his 100% record by losing the toss. Unexpectedly we were inserted but maybe Sudbury had detected moisture that would lead to early wickets and perhaps those short boundaries supported a hypothesis that any run-rate was achievable in a chase. Whatever the rationale, Sudbury had the perfect start when Spaggs went to the second ball of the game, caught behind off the left-arm seamer, Rupert Melville-Ross, for a duck. Elmo and Dubbers had to dig in against RMR and Kent but managed to navigate the first 10 overs but were only able to nudge the scoreboard to 28. At that point Sudbury we’re probably fairly happy with their decision to bowl but Elmo and Dubbers both went past 50 in a stand that lasted until the 32d over. It was our first 100 partnership of the season and eventually proved to be worth 145 before Wargent fell to Kent for 53, matching his total the previous week. The base had been set and a position of 145-2 with 18 overs remaining seemed like the foundation of a big total. However Elmo fell in the next over for a brilliant 88 that included 6 fours and 5 sixes, I remember being amazed that he got out as I’d expected him to go big as he’d done on so many occasions. He was particularly harsh on Guy Robbins, known to us as “Spaghetti or Shells” based on his post-match menu, and Andy Donnison. It was a great effort though and easily his biggest score of what would prove to be a truncated season. We lost 3 more wickets in the next 8 overs and stumbled to 171-6 by the end of the 41st over. At this point Kent was withdrawn from the attack with 2-33, he was the only bowler to concede less than 3 an over all day. Jeff Cook and Paul Raymond then ensured we would have a total to bowl at by adding a spirited 55 in just 7 overs before the latter departed. Cook reached his 50 with a maximum over the wall off RMR before becoming one of two wickets to fall in the final over. The Dons has posted a score of 251-9 and we certainly felt in the game based on the discussions over the excellent fayre that was served for tea. Marc Gozzett had donned the gloves (or cymbals as they became known) and he was soon in the action when in only the 7th over he hung onto an edge as Travaskis struck. This week he was sharing the new ball with Elmo who was shaping the ball into the right handers. Following his excellent effort with the bat Elmo claimed two quick victims and by the end of the 10th over he had helped reduce Sudbury to 32-3 and all eyes were on Jon Kent who was 2 not out at this stage. He struck six sumptuous 4’s and a couple of sixes but with the scoreboard stagnating in the 29th over and with Sudbury falling behind the asking rate he holed out to Rubber for 47. We had starved him of the strike a little while and Rubber, who bowled his first 4 overs without conceding a boundary, managed to get Kent to drag one out to deep mid-wicket where Dubbers was stationed for exactly that shot, he pouched the catch easily. It was a massive wicket on the day but also in the context of our season. It left Sudbury needing another 140 off 20 overs with 6 wickets left. It was too much to ask. Our bowlers took wickets at regular intervals and although Martin Foster followed up his efforts with the ball by striking a powerful 37 not out he couldn’t drag his team close enough to our total. Just like us they did manage 50 off the final 5 overs but our winning margin was still 7 runs and they were always just behind the rate. One very big over would have done it for them but those early wickets and our excellent bowling in the middle were their undoing. A real man of the match performance saw Elmo follow up his big score with 3-48 off 12 overs and a catch. It was a great team effort though and the supporting cast had contributed with 50’s from Dubbers and Cook. The skipper, although wicketless, only went at 3.5 an over in this 7 over spell. Travaskis picked up 3 more wickets to move to 8 for the season in 3 games. Rubber had added late runs and bowled a great spell on a ground where spinners could easily be very expensive. Conceding 23 extras was perhaps an area for improvement but it was our most complete performance to date against a quality outfit. So we were undefeated with 3 from 3 having not won a toss and suffered through poor availability. At that point it was true that we only needed one more win to be safe from relegation but our aspirations were now much higher than that. Even at this early stage we thought we were potential title contenders. Next up was a head to head home fixture with Wivenhoe who were to emerge from the pack as our biggest rivals. The weather forecast for the week was poor though and it was not certain that we would get a game at all.