On a glorious late April Sunday in front of a large crowd at Fakenham it was down to earth with a bump for Norfolk’s cricketers after a poor show with the bat saw them fall to a heavy defeat against local rivals Suffolk when they were bundled out for just 79 in reply to the visitors 203.
Earlier in the day Suffolk had won the toss and elected to bat first. They got off to a steady start and had 23 on the board when Jack Beaumont (19) edged Brett Stolworthy to Sam Arthurton at slip. The score had moved on to 58 when Joe Everett trapped Ollie Burle LBW for 15.
Darren Ironside a centurion against Norfolk last season was starting to play well and after the run out of Alex Oxley he had helped the score along to 111 before he became the first victim for the new Norfolk professional Hami Qadri when he was LBW for 44. Qadri showed his quality in an excellent spell of slow bowling 10 – 1 – 29 – 2 in which he demonstrated great control. His second wicket came when he cleaned bowled Alex Maynard.
There were useful contributions in the Suffolk innings from skipper Josh Cantrell (23) wicketkeeper Jacob Marston (27) and Dan Shanks (22). Despite losing wickets at regular intervals, they got the final total up to 203 when they bowled out in the final over.
Joe Everett finished with 2-38 and there was a wicket each for Callum Metcalf and Arthur Wilcox.
Batting looked a different proposition when Norfolk started their innings and due to some excellent bowling from left arm seamer Matt Wareing combined with poor batting Norfolk were soon in trouble at 47 for 5 with Wareing taking all five wickets in an excellent opening spell of 8 – 2 – 27 – 5. He was backed up by Beaumont and Tom Harper before Dan Shanks replaced Wareing and helped himself to 3 for 4 as he mopped up the tail. None of the Norfolk batsman got to grips with the fine bowling performance from Suffolk with Sam Arthurton being the top scorer with 14.
Link to the match scorecard Norfolk CCC