There are weekends when you sometimes have to search for a clever headline or a twist in wordsmithery to dress up a mundane set of events, of interest only to trainspotterish cricket ‘badgers’ like myself, in order to attract the attention of regular folks.
But Sunday’s monolithic events at Church’s WECG featuring a record-breaking innings of breath taking skill and power from Accrington professional Jurie Snyman need no clever or contrived intro.
One of the most sustained brutal batting blitzkriegs I’ve ever witnessed in almost six decades as a spectator might have broken my heart a couple of years ago as it came against a club I love dearly but I’d got through the long dark winter of 2025-26 sustained by the prospect of seeing another innings like the South African left-hander’s monumental knock for the club I now work with
Cold weeks counting the days off till the cricket season get easier after Christmas and I knew there would be a day, doubtless days, like that to look forward to. Lollypop man duty on a foggy December morning is bearable only because summer is coming and watching a master batter at work getting closer.
Little did I realise my club, my mates, the home where my heart is, would be the first ones to suffer Snyman’s latest extraordinary assault and then some.
My soul celebrated when I discovered Jurie had signed on for two more years. My love affair with the game began when I was taken to see Clive Lloyd and Graham Pollock play by my dad, a big fan of overseas pros.
We truly bonded as adults together aged 19 and 42 respectively over our shared adoration of another southpaw, Allan Border. We could have a pint together purring over batsmanship suprem. ‘Always prefer a batting pro,’ he’d say
It was my dad, nearly 90 and ailing swiftly in hospital now, to whom I couldn’t wait to express my excitement about Snyman’s epic.
He would have loved seeing that. Thirteen sixes and 16 fours bludgeoned and caressed around the big, big Church playing area. I text my wife who was visiting him to tell him and while he doesn’t really understand what’s happening to him, he always wants sport news and he knew just why I was so excited and eager to share the stats with him.
I’m off to give him a blow-by-blow account when I finish this. His body is old and enfeebled but his mind is sharp and he’ll be enthralled by hearing about cover drives and colossal sixes flying about, I’ll tell him it was like Border’s 179 not out at Rawtenstall in 1979 and I know there’ll be a glint in his rheumy eyes.
The thing is I kind of knew a biggie was on the way for Jurie. He’s almost been support staff a few times and I said last week he was due. Even at 19 for 2, 25 for 3, 42 for 4 (not situations he’s been unused to in truth) in atmospheric conditions my intuition told me that he was in the zone, that this was the day. Half an hour in you get the feeling he’s seeing them right, sniffing them out and ready to tee off
The score was already brisk and there were bags of overs to come – there always is in overlong Lancs Lge games these days – and the difference this season is what used to be an early-starting tale is beginning to look like a deep Accrington batting order these days.
New recruit Sam Molloy and returning Kian Farnworth were magnificent support acts for the main turn at six and seven.
And although there were plenty of plundered overs with eight or ten taken off as partnerships developed, nothing prepared anyone for the assault with 18 overs remaining with 74 taken from the next three.
After a 50-ball half century, Jurie’s next two 50’s come from 19,18 deliveries respectively. If Church get docked a point for a slow over rate they should point to time taken searching for lost balls, though as discipline ebbed away four additional overs of wides and no-balls were delivered.
Farnworth added another six to the tally in his splendid 54 and Molloy’s classy 40 with eight boundaries was his career best. Not for long, I confidently predict.
Snyman irritatingly ran himself out, ignoring the old ‘not one to the pro, Fred’ maxim once hurled towards badly-missed Church bowler Andy Bentley’s dad, with eight balls remaining and a ‘double ton’ a mere hit away.
He walked off, albeit palpably annoyed at his misjudgement, the new holder of the individual record score for an Accrington player, beating the 188 not out (Accrington declared that day!) by Charles Bennett ‘Buck’ Llewellyn against Bacup in July 1913.
Llewellyn, who guested at cricket in friendlies for Blackburn Rovers and also played for Hampshire, was a left handed South African too. Test player. He had scored just three as Accy were dismissed for 77 at Church days earlier but even he ended up on the winning side as he helped bowl the West Enders out for forty-odd. His story is well worth a Wiki search.
The sixth-wicket stand of 217 between pro and Farnworth was a Lancs League record for that wicket.. The club’s previous sixth wicket stand was 154 in that same Llewellyn game.
It wasn’t Accrington’s biggest total (386 at Rawtenstall in 2011) but was the highest league score ever against Church..
There was never any suggestion that Church would chase the target. having smartly obtained two bowling bonus points for dismissing the visitors (Cameron Smith great credit with three for 60) with one delivery spare. The hosts set out to bat the overs out and deny Accrington two bonus points and the post-tea spectacle became somewhat attritional in dropping temperatures which persuaded many to depart the scene.
Craig Ferguson amassed a patient 37 but Church pro Gunssingge was unable to get going at all, the sharp run out of Snyman remaining his main contribution.
Quite why one umpire thought it necessary to ask for DLS to be displayed halfway through the inevitably becalmed crawl to 154 for seven is unclear but credit to Church’s excellent and quite laconic scorer Mia both for humouring him and obligingly displaying the entirely superfluous stat.
You certainly have enough to do as a scorer on days like that, even in the Church knock there were idiosyncrasies like a stumping off a wide to record as Asad Khan claimed four victims. We finished at almost quarter to eight with almost 50 wides and no-balls in the game. I have a lot of sympathy for those calling for either 45 overs per side matches or a reduction in leg side wide calls. Cricket expands to fill the time available no matter how soon we start.
A player from one team complained the other week because his boundary was allocated to the wrong batsman on the board at Accrington saying ‘you’ve only got one job.’
I had to laugh in these days of laptop, console, book, DLS, and general secretarial duties recalling the era when Lionel Cooke and I also respectively served as tannoy announcers at Church and Accy.
I always had a hankering to deliver a series of announcements in the style of 80s Steve Wright characters; Sid the Manager, Mr Angry, Gervaise the Hairdresser etc but may have suffered Jack Houldsworth’s considerable opprobrium if I had and these woke times probably render it best left alone.
The late Jack’s son-in-law Phil Sykes, Church chairman, told me he had seen enough in Accrington’s Worsley Cup defeat at Lowerhouse (“they didn’t do a lot wrong and bowled very well”) and on Sunday to suggest that my dismissal of the ‘promotion hopes’ tweeter last week may have been harsh.
That’s a far more knowledgeable guy than me having them down as contenders.
Circumstances force me to miss the next two games, starting with Colne at Thorneyholme Rd on Sunday, but belief is growing that this is a team to be reckoned with.
And there’s going to be more Jurie-in-the-zone days to come I’m sure. I can’t wait!
It gives me no pleasure seeing Church, my spiritual home for 45 years, in the doldrums.
My afternoon there got off to an amusing start with a sign emblazoned “Welcome Home Judas Jim” hoisted on the car park entrance by a pair of serial middle-aged pranksters with a long rap sheet for this kind of thing.
Luckily the rest of the afternoon was virtually a succession of well-wishing visitors to the scoring hub, a virtual who’s who of my decades of involvement with the club and a lovely reminder that in times when my life was rather less settled, centred and stable than it is now, my myriad good friends at the Church Cricket club, some still around, some sadly gone, were a valuable, loved and loving support network.
Even when they take the Mickey with a good-humoured taunt, sometimes its good to go where everybody knows your name.
My Cherry Tree lads had a good win at home to Walkden with Ross Bretherton outstanding and one of the good guys, stalwart Michael Timmis, hitting a career best 44 not out. Michael never complains whoever he’s picked for and richly deserved to be in at the end of a fine win.
At one point the scoreboard went kaput and resembled the departure board at Volgograd airport.
If scorers have more than one job, electrician work isn’t among my talents. Hopefully we will be without the Cyrillic digits next time we use it.
Quiz answer – last week Adam Wilson
This week – In that 2011 match in which Accrington scored 386, which two Accrington players who have appeared for the first XI this season played? And which two scored tons?
