It's 500 wickets for Long!
Club stalwart Aran Long reached the magical target of 500 wickets on Saturday in the 3rd XI win over Binfield.
Speaking to the assembled members of the local and national press 3rd XI Captain John Cartledge heaped praise on the Talismanic Long: “For such a shy, modest, almost humble man as Aran to achieve this statistical milestone is a truly great achievement. He bowled through the pain barrier today to help the team and this speaks volumes for the man, the player, the champion that he is.”
Long was keen to interject. “Obviously when you’ve been taking wickets as long as I have you tend not to look too closely at personal milestones. Until someone told me before the game that I was on 499 I would never had known. These are the sort of personal triumphs that you look back on at the end of your career with great pride.”
Cartledge also was keen to acknowledge the small contribution others had made to the victory “Obviously, today is all about Aran and his 500 wickets, but it would be wrong of me not to mention the efforts of Krishna and Nikhil to knock the runs off for us. Both fully deserve the credit they will receive when the dust settles on Aran’s remarkable feat.”
When probed by the press about his future plans, the ever modest Long quipped “I’m not sure I’ve got another 500 wickets in me to be honest but my next goal is to reach 500 runs for the club, too”