CRICKET: Suffolk enjoyed a fruitful first day in their Minor Counties Championship match against Eastern Division leaders Bedfordshire at Luton yesterday.

CRICKET

SUFFOLK enjoyed a fruitful first day in their Minor Counties Championship match against Eastern Division leaders Bedfordshire at Luton yesterday.

The visitors scored consistently down the order to total 337, with Clacton's Ian Morton top-scoring with 73, before Bedfordshire reached 12 for no wicket in reply by close of play.

Suffolk, who called up John East to replace injured player-coach Andy Brown, lost the toss and were put into bat.

Conditions were not ideal for batting, with water having got under the Wardown Park covers and the ball

moving about.

Andy Mawson, with two centuries already since making his debut for Suffolk earlier in the season and Russell Catley put on 69 for the first wicket.

But it was Morton, batting at number three, who was the mainstay of the Suffolk innings.

His second half-century for Suffolk arrived from 102 balls and he went on to score 73 spanning 156 deliveries laced with five fours.

Morton added 70 for the fourth wicket in 22 overs with wicket-keeper Chris Warn.

The pair came together in the 47th over of the innings and Warn struck one six and three fours before he was stumped by James Knott, son of former England wicket-keeper Alan Knott.

Last pair Paul King (34 not out) and East added 30 valuable runs, but Suffolk missed out on a fourth batting point, being 12 runs short on 313 for nine after 90 overs. Bedfordshire's openers had five overs to survive before 45 minutes' play was lost to rain.

Kevin Brooks, Suffolk's director of cricket, said: "We had a good start from our openers, with Andy Mawson and Russell Catley giving us a nice platform on which to build.

"We capitalised on this with a useful contribution from Ian Morton along with Chris Warn in the middle of the innings to keep the momentum going.

"It was a little bit disappointing that we were unable to go on and get the extra batting point, but all in all it was a solid batting performance."