Awards
Club person of the year Jay Dann
Fastest 50 Prajwal Kumar
Most wickets Mark Barton
Best bowling Naga Hari
Best fielder Will Jupp
1st XI
Player of the year Ed Conlon
Batter of the year John Xavier
Bowler of the year Jay Dann
2nd XI
Player of the year Rakesh Panigrahi
Batter of the year Prajwal Kumar
Bowler of the year Adam South
By Rakesh Panigrahi, 2nd XI Captain
Some really good performances from everyone this season. Special mention to James
Drummond for scoring the only century for the season for 2s: and I think for the club
as well if I am not wrong1.
A mention too for the 75 not out by Prajwal Kumar in the same game to obliterate
the opposite bowling.
We had two five-wicket hauls, one from Adam South who was really lethal in most
of the games he played for the 2s. And with, I believe, a club record performance2 of 5
wickets for 0 runs, Naga Hari.
We fielded really well this season as well, not many drop catches this season, and we
took some spectacular catches as well. Special mention to Andrew Staplehurst for
two brilliant catches against Longstowe.
3rd XI
Player of the year Jamie McPherson
Batter of the year Pete While
Bowler of the year Jamie McPherson
Special Awards
By Will Day, Secretary Emeritus
Most ducks
There are awards for some great knocks: but where there is light, there is also shade and
we have to recognise the other end of performances.
Purely on League and Cup games, it was a three-way tie; adjusting for all games, in
joint third place is Harsha Mallesh and Sijin Saji with four each. Second place with
five is Ed Pinches.
Our runaway leader, appropriately as until our last game I’d only seen him run out:
with seven ducks, Alex McPherson. In what may be a challenge to 3rd XI captaincy,
Alex captained well in our end of season performance at Fen Ditton, despite needing
someone to go out for the toss.
The James Drummond award for biggest junior league bully
In third place, Martin Coston for insisting on only playing 3s. Coming second, the
entirety of the Ghent tour for not allowing Hendy to retire ‘because we wanted to
win at least one’.
Unsuprisingly, the eponymous James Drummond award goes to James Drummond
for another 2s ton.
Worst fielding
At third, the entire 3s team at home to Cam Kerala. Details to be had on application
to the captain.
Second place to Nathan Sivajoti, whose brain fade in Ghent from an aptly named
Delirium hangover left him completely stationary, as a ball that was in the sky for eternity
headed directly towards him and dropped half a metre in front.
And because any piece of fielding that ends with a high pitched ‘get me painkillers
. . . and an ambulance’ can’t be all that great, the winner is Ethan Sorrell.
The Tom Johnson award for best comeback or recovery
Two sharing third place: Andy Staplehurst, for returning after years away with a high
score of 60, and Phil Allen, for joining and instantly breaking his foot, then buying and
proceeding to tell anyone who’d listen about his new steel capped cricket shoes.
In second, Nathan Sivajoti for just being alive let alone playing cricket after napping
in the hotel lobby, on the pitch, in the taxi and under the smallest towel you’ve ever seen.
The winner, and quite fittingly absent from awards evening, Hursh Nayer for being
available then injured, passing a fitness test and then being injured again all within the
space of three whatsapp messages.
The James Henderson, chilled out entertainer award
This next award is about vibes. We play a lot of teams who are way too uptight or take
things too seriously (and some of our players are guilty of this, too).
Therefore this rewards a more laissez-faire approach to our beloved sport, and bears
the name of the embodiment of the relaxed approach.
In third, James Henderson himself, smoking Ghent all over the place on his matchwinning
90 not out, all while wearing his Archaeology floppy hat and ‘trying to get out
because he needed a fag’.
Second place shared between Shyam Perisetla’s general time-keeping and the proportion
of 45 overs John Xavier spends horizontal.
With the image from club day, how could Ollie not win something?
Best excuse
Third place to Ethan Sorrell for not making a midweek game after going bat and head
first through a windscreen.
In second, James Drummond for organising a wedding in the season, not getting
married but still going on the golfing holiday.
The winner, Pete Jones for missing the awards evening, bearing in mind the event
has said on teamer ‘will play if short’, and was also in Malta.
Tours
By Niall Taylor and Will Day
MILTON in SUSSEX, 2023
At Ditchling, 22 April. St James’s Montefiore vs Milton. Abandoned before the toss.
At Tadworth, 23 April. Tadworth vs Milton. Abandoned before the toss.
The spring tour, which this year was taken in preference to rather than aligned with
the Village Cup entry, is becoming one of the more keenly-anticipated events of the
season. Fourteen members in all. Some travelled on Friday (April 21), the others the
following morning.
Headlined in diaries as a ‘cricket tour to Brighton’: a sign of things to come, perhaps,
that our accommodation was not even in Hove, actually, but Portslade. We spent a
pleasant evening, just about warm enough to be outside, at the Foghorn micropub, guided
by local Milton alumnus James Ward.
We’d known before leaving Cambridge that due to rain the previous week, our venue
for the Saturday fixture, delightfully situated at the bottom of a hill, was waterlogged
and unplayable. Despite almost successful attempts by our hosts to find an alternative –
their team as willing to play as we were – none was forthcoming.
The cancellation came in time to miss only a few overs of the third day of Sussex v
Yorkshire at the County Ground in Hove. Yorkshire resumed on 216 for 7, reaching 298
before lunch with a brisk 45 from Ben Coad. The Sussex second innings, and the man
we’d really come to see, came and went quickly – Pujara lbw after an unsettled 13, the
home side adding only 137. We passed the time between the club shop and waving at
Dawid Malan, who politely waved back from the boundary. The weather was perfect:
warm in the sunshine, just enough breeze to be comfortable in shirt-sleeves. Attempts to
find anywhere to have a net – including enquiry to the ground staff – came to nothing.
As, disappointingly given the forecast for Sunday, did the Yorkshire chase. Set 201, their
heart didn’t seem in it: 138 for 3 at the close, and with the fourth day lost to rain, the
match was drawn.
Dinner had been arranged – an excellent Sri Lankan restaurant nearby. It was that
culinary delight, close run with the post-prandial beer at the Evening Star, which was
the highlight of the weekend. For your correspondent, an early night; for others, some
time in Brighton proper and the only Milton cricket of the tour on the balcony at three
o’clock. Rain on the walk home was to be a sign – we woke to a downpour and bad news
from our next opponents Tadworth, its only positive that it came early enough to allow
alternative Sunday plans to be made.
Not, then, a cricket tour in Brighton, but a tour of no cricket in Portslade.
MILTON in GHENT, 2023
Our first international tour in recent years saw nineteen travel to Ghent, home to two
clubs in the Belgian cricket hierarchy. Three matches planned – a brace of T20I on
Saturday (September 9), and a 30-over match on Sunday with special timings to allow
for the Eurostar home. In another first, all were full-on white ball games, with pyjamas
ordered for the occasion. These, at least for some, fitted for size if not branding: a fiesta
of comiconomenclaturism, derived by No Run (Nathan Sivajoti, the tour’s organiser)
and Unsheathed (Will Day, club stalwart). Equipment was conveniently shared, giving a
short individual packing list: passport, box, and banter.
Before the cricket, there was the small matter of some time to pass in the leading
brewing nation globally. Whatever should we do?
We had a relaxed journey, Thursday after work, and the first meeting with Jupiler
Pils, at some small hour to settle into the hotel: modern, mostly rectangular, possibly
having seen previous service as an institution.
Ghent is built around rivers. Historically critical to the weaving trade from the XIV
century (the only time this report will use that word), they now host pleasure-craft,
which, in turn, host visiting Englishmen. Such is the attraction that one of the party (it
was Best Jones, aka Pete) showed considerable reluctance to leave his canoe and would
still be there had he not been rescued. The city’s bars, too, are an attraction, and what
better way to experience Flemish culture than to watch cricket in an Irish bar? So it was
that the afternoon passed.
Our nameless 19th (Ched Conlon), A Run (Arun Sivajoti), and Sheathed (Niall Taylor)
arrived on Friday evening, late and grumpy, did a little turn of the centre, then joined
the revelry well underway. We were entertained by four naked men and a dead pigeon in
Dok Brewing Company, based in old wharf buildings in the industrial quarter near the
hotel.
It was, by then, late, and gentlemen in England then a-bed had, honestly, made the
right call. Many – a wise few apart – went on. Waar is Loca, the sign inquired. Loca, we
concluded, is lekker, en wij zijn bij Oswald. We made friends and memories. Guided by
our tour leader we took a delightful turn – along the tramway, over a bridge, seeking
a DIY-techno experience. We instead made a glorious loop back to the sympathetic
baronet, finally calling Time when the bar did.
The morning was a little slower than planned. Enlivened by coffee, a gentle warm-up
in the hotel reception, and a nap, we arrived at a varied sports complex in the suburbs.
Our oval for the weekend was, impressively for the level of cricket in the nation, better
equipped than other grounds we have seen in England. An artificial wicket, small shed
for equipment, and shade provided by a branded gazebo. The shade became prized:
already into the high twenties with more heat to come, the conditions by mid-afternoon
unpleasant and dangerously hot.
In between the two T20Is we were offered an enormous and delicious biryani, and beer.
Honours even on the field, hot and dry, we refreshed ourselves at HQ before returning
to the wharf complex. This time, as balance against the previous night’s queer vibe of
Oswald, it was to watch rugby in a sports bar. That done, an early(ish) night.
There is no chapel on the day on which we hung our hopes: to retain, perhaps, a relic
of cricketing performance. Our psalter, the scorebook, loyal and familiar, entrusted to
unconventional and capable keepers, as the usual notcher (Taylor, again) was occupied
in falling over at fine leg. Owing to the time of our return train, and – suspected but not
admitted – the Asia Cup game later in the day, we started early, before half-past ten.
The outfield was lush and slick, the day, again, hot, and we laboured. Lunch was a curry
of unpeeled chana and, typically, waffles. For the foolhardy more Jupiler, at two euros
each from the entrepreneurial opposition captain.
We managed the full sixty overs, and a little time having been allowed for leisure, we
returned to the Irish bar to watch some professional cricket. A tram to the station, a delay
at Brussels (which at least allowed for some frites), but we made it home: exhausted,
hot, but happy.
Almanack
A scorer’s notes
By Niall Taylor
In this section, the data source is play-cricket, and will replicate its errors and omissions.
With the bat, the highest score and only century was 108 by James Drummond, falling
fifth in all-time top scores for the second XI, his own 120 vs Madingley in 2019 and J
Faria’s 127 vs Chippenham in 2020 remaining top.
The highest partnership, 134 for Pradeep and John Xavier is the second highest ever
for the fourth wicket. Sam Jones and Andrew Staplehurst’s 72 is the third highest for
the sixth wicket. Bala Natarajan and Prajwal Kumar 81 is the second highest for the
ninth wicket.
A further seventeen batters scored twenty-four fifties between them. (2022: 8 centuries,
43 fifties). Ethan Sorrell’s 92 in the friendly against Reach on 28 May is the second
highest ever for that XI, and the highest score this year for a losing Milton side, his 84no
at St Giles the highest score this year carrying the bat.
Will Jupp gains two entries in top strike rates by XI – 6 from 2 against TTP (300.00,
third) for the Midweek side and 28 from 13 at Fulbourn (215.38, fifth) for the 2nd XI.
On the other end, Pete While’s 10 from 49 (20.41) against Cam Kerala is the longest
score of ten or less on record, in terms of balls faced.
Milestones for next year, J Drummond stands on 2910 career runs, Joe Jones 1943,
Will Day on 936, Prajwal on 497.
Bowling, the outstanding analysis is Naga’s 3-3-0-5 on 2 Sep for 2nd XI v Cottenham.
Does anything come close? On 19 June 2021 N Widdowson 4-4-0-1 for 1st XI v Buntingford
at Sycamores, and on the same day J Dann 2-2-0-2 for 3rd XI v Girton at Girton. The
cheapest 5-for in the record I can offer 3.3-3-0-6 by Tim Moynihan for Ashwell against
Milton on 29 June 2013, and bowled by us is 3-1-2-5 by W Conlon on 16 June 2007.
In other games nine bowlers made eleven four-fors.
On 12 August Ed Cree took the club’s first dismissal hit wicket since 25 June 2017, a
gap of 2239 days; 21 days later Naga Hari took a wicket the same way.
For note next year: Drummond overwinters on a hat-trick. W Day is, possibly3, on 96
career wickets at all clubs; which is also, and uniquely, his squad number.
Will Jupp on 8 July joined a small group to have taken four catches in an innings.
On the same day Pete While for the 3rd XI conceded no byes when Elsworth made
236/5, the second highest such total for that XI this decade.
(I want this to be true more than it is likely to be).
Nothing came close to the record 887 in a day on 23 July 2022. The most runs scored
by the club in a single day this year was 578 on 8 July, twenty-eighth in the list of daily
totals.
We did not quite concede the highest recorded total in local competiton, such distinction
belongs to Girton against Gt Shelford’s 424/2 on 28 August 2021. And we did restrict
Qualcomm to 48ao on 5 July this year, the lowest total in adult cricket at the Sycamores.
The year was not quite remarkably unremarkable: stats will always deliver. But
cloudier skies, and fewer stars, than last year.
Stats
Centuries
There was one century scored this year (2022: eight).
108 James Drummond 2nd XI vs Steeple Morden 8 Jul 2023
Other batting
There were a further 24 scores between 50 and 100 (2022: 35).
Noteable partnerships
134 4th wkt P Gowda & J Xavier 1st XI vs Buntingford CC 15 Jul 2023
97 1st wkt E Sorrell & J Dann Midweek XI vs Qualcomm 05 Jul 2023
91 2nd wkt J Jones & N Hari 2nd XI vs Madingey 20 May 2023
84* 2nd wkt J Xavier & W Jupp Midweek XI vs Dobblers 26 Jul 2023
81 9th wkt B Natarajan & P Kumar Friendly XI vs E.L.A. 24 May 2023
79 1st wkt G Newton & W Conlon 1st XI vs Cambourne 08 Jul 2023
72 6th wkt S Jones & A Staplehurst 3rd XI vs Cam Kerala 10 Jun 2023
The highest partnership, 134 for Pradeep and John Xavier is the second highest ever
for the fourth wicket. Sam Jones and Andrew Staplehursts 72 is the third highest for the
sixth wicket. Bala Natarajan and Prajwal Kumar 81 is the second highest for the ninth
wicket.
Four-fors
There were twelve four-fors (2022: 11):
5/0 Naga Hari 2nd XI vs Cottenham 2 Sep 2023
5/29 Adam South 2nd XI vs Longstowe 26 Aug 2023
4/5 James Drummond 1st XI vs Madingley 26 Aug 2023
4/17 Tom Sharrock Midweek XI vs TTP 1 Aug 2023
4/18 Mark Barton 1st XI vs March 20 May 2023
4/19 Bala Natarajan 2nd XI vs Harlton 15 Jul 2023
4/22 Zubair Akbar Midweek XI vs Cambourne 27 Jun 2023
4/23 Ed Pinches Friendly XI vs E.L.A 24 May 2023
4/24 Adam South 2nd XI vs Longstowe 19 Aug 2023
4/41 Mark Barton 1st XI vs Cambourne 8 Jul 2023
4/53 Will Charlton 3rd XI vs Northstowe 1 Jul 2023
4/62 Ed Cree Friendly XI vs Reach 28 May 2023
Wicket-keeping
William Jupp 9ct, 2std plus 2 outfield catches
William Conlon 6ct ” 1 ”
Peter While 5ct, 1std ” 1 ”
Will Day 4ct, 1std
Sandesh Dambekodi 4ct ” 3 ”
Ethan Sorrell 3ct, 1std ” 1 ”
Joe Jones 3ct ” 2 ”
Conlon (44, 33ct/11std) moves to third in all-time wicket-keeping wickets (2022: fourth);
Day (42, 33ct/9std) becomes fourth equal, and fourth if outfield catches are used to break
the tie (2022: fifth).
Fielding
Ed Conlon, Adam South, James Drummond and Nathan Sivajoti each took nine catches
in the field, John Xavier seven; Bala Natarajan, Ed Pinches and Rakesh Panigrahi, six.
This was the first year (2020 excluded) since 2014 that no-one took ten outfield catches.
Run outs: as last year, I have not included here, as data tend to be incomplete.
Others
In the year, play-cricket (and my records) has:
• sixteen primaries for fifteen Milton players (2022: 11, 2021: 20), of which four on
the same day and three of them in the same match
• one Milton player dismissed without facing (2022: nil, 2021: 2)
• 15 dropped or missed catches (2022: 19)
• 13 half-chances (2022: 23)
• no recorded instance of hit in the lower abdomen
• ten games lost to the weather (2022: nil).
Primaries
Adam South – 2 Sep 2023 – Cottenham
Jolyon Faria – 26 Aug 2023 – Madingley
Nicholas Widdowson – 19 Aug 2023 – Buntingford
James Henderson – 19 Aug 2023 – Buntingford
Will Day – 19 Aug 2023 – Buntingford
Sihin Saji – 19 Aug 2023 – Bar Hill
Chris Stock – 12 Aug 2023 – Madingley
Edward Pinches – 3 Aug 2023 – CTS
Edward Pinches – 1 Aug 2023 – TTP
Naga Hari – 15 Jul 2023 – Harlton
David Gibson – 24 Jun 2023 – Thriplow
Mark Barton – 24 Jun 2023 – Thriplow
Tom Sharrock – 14 Jun 2023 – Histon
Naga Hari† – 3 Jun 2023 – Ramsey
Harsha Mallesh – 24 May 2023 – ELA
William Jupp – 17 May 2023 Cambridge – NCI
Goku Prabhakaran – 14 May 2023 – Cam Ceylon
†run out without facing
Results
XI P W L A
1st – Played 16 Wins 7 Loses 9
2nd – Played 16 Wins 7 Loses 9
3rd – Played 13 Loses 12 Abandoned 1
Friendly – Played 8 Wins 2 Loses 6
Midweek – Played 12 Wins 4 Loses 7 Abandoned 1
Beehive – Played 1 Loses 1
All – Played 66 Wins 20 Loses 44 Abandoned 2
Report By Niall Taylor 26th November 2023
