Ollie looking forward to home comforts

August 13, 2026

OLLIE Burle is looking forward to the home comforts of playing at Copdock & Old Ipswichian CC in the NCCA Cluberly Championship.

Burle (pictured above) is included in the Suffolk Men’s 1st XI side that host Cambridgeshire in their penultimate Eastern Division One three-day fixture of the campaign, starting on Sunday (11am).

The Copdock & Old Ipswichian opening bat and his team-mates will be bidding to bounce back from the agonising 16-run loss to Buckinghamshire at Chesham CC last time out.

Burle’s only century so far for Suffolk came in a 50-over friendly versus Bedfordshire at Bury St Edmunds, although he twice came close to a hundred in successive Championship matches last season.

It was on his home ground last season that Burle made an unbeaten 96, and he then scored 95 at Lincolnshire before falling lbw in the following game.

Looking ahead to the match at Old London Road, Burle said: “It is always a great fixture for us.

“We usually have a good contingent of Copdock players in our side, probably four or five, and the club usually make it a good event, so it is definitely one we are looking forward to a lot.

“I just try to do my thing and score big runs, to be honest. Last year I was unfortunate to miss out on a couple of hundreds, but that’s cricket.

“Coming back to my home ground, where I play every other Saturday, that fills me with a lot of confidence and hopefully I can go one better this year.”

Burle has posted scores of 74 & 14 versus Northumberland and 2 & 44 against Buckinghamshire, and has also been in good form for Copdock in the East Anglian Premier League.

“League-wise, I feel I am having a good season – certainly my best so far. Being 19 it takes a few years to get into the rhythm of playing Premier League cricket and hopefully I am starting to find that this year.

“Three-day cricket is definitely a format that I enjoy batting in and leading into the game it is more a case of taking it as just another innings and not thinking too much about it,” he said.

Despite the defeat to Buckinghamshire, Burle believes Suffolk are still very much in the mix to win the division.

He said: “I think the loss at Chesham hasn’t dampened our hopes too much. We know we played some good cricket and could easily have won two out of two.

“We played really well against Northumberland to scrape a win and unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the result in the next game, which was disappointing, but we will keep working hard.

“Coming to Copdock, we know that if we win, we then go to Staffordshire knowing that if we win that too we will probably win the division.”

With ex-Essex bat Feroze Khushi again unavailable, Suffolk bring in Copdock’s Ishaan Rakesh for only his second Championship appearance.

The Suffolk U18 bat made his debut on his home ground last season, scoring 69 in Suffolk’s first innings. Freddie Heldreich drops out of the side.

Suffolk: Jack Beaumont (capt), Ollie Burle, Darren Ironside, Ishaan Rakesh, Alex Oxley, Josh Cantrell, Jacob Marston (wkt), Tom Harper, Freddie Cloud, Dan Shanks, Chris Steele.

Tags: , , , ,

Categorised in: ,