KEITH PEEL Richard Sims has broken one of Norfolk's oldest club cricket records. The Zimbabwean hit 196 for Swardeston in their Bob Carter Cup semi-final win at Old Buckenham.

KEITH PEEL

Richard Sims has broken one of Norfolk's oldest club cricket records. The Zimbabwean hit 196 for Swardeston in their Bob Carter Cup semi-final win at Old Buckenham. That surpassed the 193 scored by Peter Thomas when Swardeston beat Caister by 287 runs in a Norfolk Junior Cup match in 1976. Thomas subsequently featured in the EDP local cricket column alongside its compiler, Keith Skipper, who was in the Caister team and completed a hat-trick.

“He was a leg-spin bowler and not at all a bad cricketer,” recalled Thomas, whose spectacular display of big hitting included 24 fours and a dozen sixes.

Sims cracked 23 fours and four sixes in an innings which came within 23 runs of the Carter Cup record, the 216 not out scored by Steve Pope for Great Witchingham against Old Buckenham.

Witchingham were 245-run losers of the weekend's other semi-final, against Vauxhall Mallards.

Mallards will now try to avenge last summer's final defeat by Swardeston when they meet for another showdown on Sunday, August 13 (10.45am start) at Manor Park, Horsford.

Swardeston's Ben Shearing, 15, has been named the Lovewell Blake Norfolk Alliance's first player of the month award winner of the summer.

Playing in Division Two for the A team, captained by his father, Stuart, the Wymondham High School pupil, who lives at Hethersett, scored his maiden Alliance half century and bagged his first five-wicket league haul.

His performances earned him a call-up to first team action in the Gibbs Denley East Anglian Premier League and the Stan Biss Trophy.

Stuart Shearing said: “At Swardeston, the emphasis is very much on giving youngsters a chance, not just a game of cricket but a chance to participate fully in the game.

“Ben is a level-headed lad and knows he has set himself a high standard that he now has to live up to.

“I have no doubt that, if he continues to work hard and listen to advice from seniors around him, he can achieve whatever he wants to at both club and county level.”

Ben was presented with a trophy and £100 worth of sports vouchers by Philip Bartram of sponsors Lovewell Blake.