UAE’s Aaron William Benjamin shines for WPCC in the Surrey championship.

Junior left arm quick, Aaron William Benjamin Joined the WPCC 1st XI as an overseas player in their ongoing 2023/24 Surrey championship league, 2 months ago. In his first 3 matches, Aaron picked up most of his wickets in his first spell, and 4 of which came in his first overs itself (vs Stoke D’Abernon CC & vs Cheam CC).

Before moving to London, he was coached by former Sri Lanka U19 and Moors cricket club player (Sri Lankan 1st division team), Aruna Bandaranayake, to whom he heavily credits for enhancing his skills of fast bowling as well as embodying what it means to play the game as a “unit”, in order to win matches.

Though Aaron has made a transfer to London, he is also to completing his masters degree in Law but looks forward to the 2nd half of the 2023/24 season, with great pitches and a cloudy atmosphere that subcontinental fast bowlers could only dream of.

Young Benjamin’s most notable international performance was against the India Under 19 national team, where he took the wickets of former Indian U-19 captain, Pavan Shah and current IPL player Prabhsimran Singh, of the Punjab Kings.

Having played against the likes of the prodigy Devdutt Padikkal, in the very same tournament, Aaron recalls having a ‘tough time’ outsmarting the young batsman but also mentions that it was a very insightful experience on how high the level of cricket is in India. Aaron went on to say, “It was one of the first times playing 50 over cricket, it was made even more interesting under the Bangladesh pitch conditions, but it was a good tour in terms of backing my skills and playing the game to my strengths”.

Such experiences have paved the way for Aaron’s success in the UK, as pitches are far flung from what he is used to playing on. None the less, the competition levels in the Surrey championship are quite high as he says “though the conditions are better suited for me, I still have to work very hard to take wickets here, as batsmen are more disciplined when it comes to the longer format of the game, than in the UAE”. Additionally his pace bowling partners, Luke Sapey and Assad Siddique, have made been producing some great spells throughout the season too, so it is safe to say that ‘proximity is power’, when it comes to these 3 young men.

With only 2 and a half months of the tournament remaining, Aaron and the rest of the WPCC pace bowlers look geared and ready to finish the season off with many more strong performances.