1864'S MAINTAIN WINNING HABIT AT NEWCASTLE SUPER KINGS. Sat 16th May 2026: NTCL Div 5 South: SNCC 1864 v Newcastle Super Kings (a) 4/40

16th May 2026

SNCC 138ao (35.2o) Will Carr 11, Belinda Wewalage 35, Matthew Smith 9, Thomas Hunter 32, Manas Kakkar 27: L Balasubramanian 2-39, A Kuttapan 1-18, S Singh 6-23, R Saxena 0-20, V Venkatachalam 0-15, A Kalidasan 1-17.

Newcastle Super Kings 98ao (33.4o) A Nagarajan 27, R Parapudi 13, J Priyadharshan 20: Thomas Hunter 2-13, Jacques Graham 3-26, Matthew Smith 1-11, Manas Kakkar 1-17, Will Carr 0-7, Thomas Young 3-22.

SNCC 1864 won by 40 runs - 28 points, Newcastle Super Kings 6.

On a sunny day at Ushaw Moor, just outside Durham City, the 64's won the toss & chose to bat. Aadi Bethanabatla & Will Carr faced the seam of Balasubramanian & Kuttapan. Aadi (0) edged an away swinger in over to w/k Nagarajan. Belinda joined Will, the wicket already seemed to have uneven bounce so playing back was not without risk.

Belinda & Will both struck boundaries in over 3 but in the next Will (11) advanced but missed to be bowled by Kuttapan, 19-2. Belinda pulling to mid wicket with abandon struck 6, then 4.6.2.1 in a productive 9^th over.

At 52 in the 14^th Matty Rathbone (3) drove Singh to cover, then 4 wickets were lost in 4 overs as Belinda (35, 43b, 2x4 2x6) was caught at mid wicket off Balasubramanian, his an important contribution, Jacques (1) was bowled by a Singh inswinger, Paddy (2) by a yorker & Jack Seymour (2) too, 62-7.

Then Matthew Smith (rh) & Tom Hunter (lh) built an important partnership of 20 before Matthew (9) was caught at point off Singh, 82 -8. Manas joined Tom & the pair put together a match defining partnership of 45, Tom H pulling through the leg side & cutting past point, Manas driving straight & pulling until at 127 in the 33^rd over Tom (32, 43b, 1x4) was bowled by Kalidasan.

Manas truck another boundary but in the 36^th edged to w/k Nagarajan off Singh who finished with 6 wickets. The 64's, 138 all out but a feeling that on an surface with uneven bounce, this was defendable.

In reply Sathiah & Nagarajan faced the left arm seam of Thomas Hunter & slow left arm of Jacques Graham & then Matthew Smith (rm) in over 4. In over 8 Sathiah (5) drove Smith to cover where Paddy Rathbone took the catch, 19-1.

Manas Kakkar (rm) joined the attack in over 13 & gained an lbw verdict against Nagarajan (27, 45b, 1x4, 2x6) - 41-2. Then in his 4^th & 5^th overs Jacques took three wickets. Kalidasan (6) bowled, Dharmaraj (0) lbw first ball, & in his next Singh (7) bowled, 60-5, a vital spell.

Parapudi & Priyadharshan resisted but at 86 in Tom Young's (lb) second over Parapudi (13) missed a sweep & was bowled, 86-6. Tom was bowling his leg breaks with good control & following a maiden, in his 4^th over Saxena (5 ) skied a sweep to mid wicket where Aadi took the catch, 92-7 & then Kuttapan (2) perished offering another catch to Aadi at mid wicket off Tom 96-8.

Priyadharshan's (20) resistance was ended by Tom Hunter when he lofted to Jacques at mid off in the 32^nd over.  Tom H gained reward for a good spell by bowling Balasubramanian (1) in the 34^th over. Tom H 8.4-2-13-2, Jacques 9-2-26-3, Tom Y 6-0-22-3, magnificent !! The fielding was good & the team persevered in the face of some seemingly idiosyncratic umpiring decisions.

A third win from 5 games sees the 1864's in second place in Div 5 South on 99 points, 2 behind Annfield Plain (101) but with 5 points covering the top 6 teams. 

Onward to Sat 23rd May  SNCC 1864 v Annfield Plain (a) 40/40 from 1300. We hope you can be there to cheer the team on.

Duncan.