Peter Worthington led with the bat, and Tino Best with the ball, as Mildenhall took the bragging rights in the west Suffolk derby with a home victory over Bury St Edmunds by 39 runs on Saturday.
Newly-promoted Mildenhall recorded their second victory in the Gibbs Denley East Anglian Premier League, since their promotion from the Two Counties Championship last summer, at the expense of a Bury side who are still searching for their first win.
Mildenhall were always in the driving seat, at their Wamil Way ground, after accumulating a hard-earned 186 for nine off their 50 overs.
Worthington top-scored with a gritty 65 at No. 3, receiving useful support from opener Joe Reed (28), Matt Allen (24) and captain Ben Shepperson (28).
Basement dwellers Bury then lost early wickets and eventually subsided to 147 all out, in the 47th over, suffering their fifth defeat from five starts this summer.
Former West Indian Test bowler Best ended with wonderful figures of 8.4-2-14-3, while his new ball partner Kyle Morrison impressed with two for 30 off eight overs.
Bury captain Sean Park, playing his first game of the summer, had earlier won the toss and elected to field, but Mildenhall coped well on a tricky batting surface.
“The nature of the wicket meant that it was always going to be difficult to bat on,” explained Mildenhall captain Shepperson.
“It was very slow and runs were difficult to come by, so I was relatively happy to get up to a score of 186. I thought that if we had got to 220, then Bury would have been completely out of the game, so we got a par total for the pitch, grinding out the runs.
“Peter (Worthington) batted really well for us. He’s a class act, and he batted for a long time, which is what we needed.
“He played the anchor role, 100%, and that enabled a few of us to play some shots.”
Experienced Australian Worthington faced 130 deliveries for his patient 65, which featured just four boundaries. He put on 45 for the second wicket with Reed, 55 for the third wicket with Allen, and then shared a fourth wicket stand of 56 with Shepperson.
Worthington (fifth wicket to fall) eventually fell to Bury skipper Park, with the total on 170, by which time Mildenhall were already in a fairly strong position.
South African all-rounder Park took three for 31 off his 10 overs, while opening bowler Mark Nunn returned fine figures of 10-1-37-4, which included the important wickets of Reed and Shepperson.
Although Bury do have some experienced players in their ranks, like Park, Nunn and Sean Cooper, they are mainly a young team and once again they lost early wickets before their more experienced middle order entered the fray.
Morrison removed both openers cheaply, to leave the visitors on six for two, before Best and Pakistani veteran Murtaza Hussein, formerly of Surrey, took charge.
Park made 33, while Cooper top-scored with 36, but Bury were always playing catch-up.
Shepperson continued: “Getting some early wickets was always going to be key for us, and so it proved. Kyle Morrison had struggled a little during the first few weeks, but he really came good. Kyle came into his own, and bowled really well.
“As his figures suggest, Tino (Best) was outstanding. He’s a different class, and his bowling was brilliant.
“I always felt that Bury were about 20 runs behind where they should have been, to be in within a chance. I don’t think they really ever got going.
“So that is now two wins from our first five matches, while we were also very competitive in our other three matches.
“We now go into the long format (at least 120 overs) – I’m not sure why the League keeps pushing this – but we’re looking forward to it. This will be new to most of our team, having come up last season, but I see no reason why we can’t be successful and we certainly won’t be changing our approach or our style of play.”
Meanwhile, Bury captain Park said: “The wicket was in fairly good nick, considering all the recent rain, so there are no excuses. We did well in the first half, restricting them after they had got to 80 for two off 18 overs, and they didn’t manage to score a boundary in their last eight overs.
“But we then had two soft dismissals at the top of our innings, which didn’t help, because they had Tino Best bowling at 85mph at the other end!
“The plan was to just try and see out Tino, but we also lost wickets in the middle order and no one managed to kick on.
“We just haven’t got enough experience in our batting at the moment,” added Park.
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