Fakenham entertained newly promoted Dereham for this Alliance Premier match on Saturday sponsored by TKR Plastering and completed a comfortable 7 wicket victory, making it 2 wins from 2 games this season, and carrying  on from where they left off at the end of last season, extending their club record to 14 straight league wins in the process.

Having won the toss Fakenham chose to field in almost perfect bowling conditions. Luke Caswell and Lloyd Marshall opened the bowling and were looking to capitalise with new ball. Marshall could not quite find his rhythm, whilst Caswell could, but somehow, he could not find the initial breakthrough that his spell deserved. Dereham slowly worked their way to 30-0 before Fakenham struck. From then on it was almost all Fakenham. Caswell, with 1-11 from his 10 overs set the tone, soon followed by Will Dunger, 3-25, and captain David Coyle, 2-29, as Dereham limped towards a total well short of a par score for this ground. Their pain was soon over however, as the returning Toby Hood, having his first bowl in the first team for over two years, took 3-13 to finally reduce Dereham to 129 all out.

Fakenham were without three of their recognised opening batters (Jon Ewart, Harry Bammant and Keegan Monaghan-Fairlie) but they were able to use Harrison Futter (after his 75 for the 2^nd’s last week) and Richard Ewart in the roles, and between them negated the threat of Dereham’s opening attack. The two moved Fakenham to within 100 of victory before Ewart departed (25). Ben Harvey followed shortly afterwards (1) and Dereham finally sensed an opportunity. Futter was living dangerously, he was dropped three times, but in between these mistakes he was showing his undoubted ability, especially when despatching two straight sixes. Futter eventually perished to a catch at deep square leg (34). This left Luke Caswell (47)and will Dunger (12) to steadily and serenely move towards the winning line and secure a valuable 24 points to move Fakenham to second place by just a one point margin to Downham.

The man of the Match was awarded to Luke Caswell for his performances with both bat and ball.

Next week the 1^st’s are away at Cromer with the usual 12:00 start.

Continuing the success, the second team had another good win to add to last week’s performance as they beat Winterton away by 3 wickets, with Mark Jarvis the outstanding performer with 59 from the teams 119-7, leaving them in 3^rd place in the table. Saturday will see the 2^nd’s at home to Cromer 2^nd  for their Division 4 game.

The 3^rd team were also in action again, on Saturday away at Denver and after winning the toss they elected to field first and in a match restricted to 30 overs they kept Dever to 148-4 whist replying with 149-3, lifting them to 4^th place in the table. Next week they will be playing North Elmham with a 1:00 start.

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